Yo-Yo:
Kidnapped in Provence (1999) / view
images from this book
From the book jacket text:
Yo-Yo, a Norwich terrier, was kidnapped then ransomed from a Gypsy chief
of French car thieves by a former Marine war photographer, in a surrealistic
face-to-face supermarket parking lot payoff near Marseille. More than a
dozen gangster flankmen infiltrated the money-for-puppy arena during the
bizarre confrontation. By request, all the French gendarmes of Provence
had stepped aside, permitting the American combat veteran to deal with Yo-Yo's
abductors, alone.
He became famous almost overnight — when only 5 pounds, 4-months old.
A poster-and-media blitz launched on the French Riviera and in Paris itself (prayers also in Notre Dame cathedral) had targeted every major news channel that might help find and rescue him. A no-questions $2000 reward beckoned from Roman ruins and myriad ancient village walls of Provence, saturating that historic-but-secretive region near where he was stolen. The most popular family-pet program on French television screened his image and theft saga-drama across most of Europe and to England.
Yo-Yo was returned unharmed wearing a Hermes collar and on a silver leash, half-a-pound heavier and proud of his impeccable newly acquired household behavior. How he had spent those same endless nineteen days of mistress anguish — obviously more than comfortable among gangsters — will always mystify this book's now most-cautious photographer/author, whom he bit, when they first met.
