Italian senators revel in short skirts

Why did the photo of these Italian senators rocket around the world last week? Because a male politician in Italy labelled women who wear short skirts as 'cheap' and 'cheaters', unfit to be wives and mothers (!)--stating that a discriminating man should go for someone who hides more of their legs ...

These senators stood up to denounce and overturn this appalling patriarchal double standard. Good on them, because such twisted thinking can and does lead to violence against women.

As it happens, there is a villain at the core of my latest novel Death in Champagne, who adheres to that vicious double standard, with fatal consequences. He is drawn by beautiful women but if they have the audacity to make their own choices over how they work and dress, whom they love and where they marry, his powerful craving for dominance turns to hatred.

Victor Constant is the first gendarme in his military corps to realise that there is a serial killer hidden in the lovely Champagne countryside ...