This eleventh installment of the 14-book "John Colleton" series of erotic pseudo-memoirs has for its settings Charleston, Madrid, and Rome. I've previously read only the second and the seventh books, which made the early chapters of this one a little bewildering for me. They do take for granted a fair amount of prior character relationships, and narrator Beauregard "Bill" Benton seems disinclined to supply context rather than witticisms. He does occasionally fill in details retrospectively--often with block text that looks like it might be quoting earlier books.

This short book is not psychologically profound, nor morally responsible. In The Pleasures of Cloris, Bill had already shown a lack of confidence in his abilities as a writer, and that note is sustained here, nine books later. In addition, he declares, "As must be evident by now, I am not comfortable with myself. I am bothered always by conflicting loyalties, mixed emotions, mixed emissions" (127). I can't say that I judge his adventures admirable, but I do find them entertaining.

John Colleton was the nom-de-plume that Robert W Marks adopted for the sequence of fourteen erotic paperback novels he published late in his life. ‘The Delights of Anna’ is the eleventh book of the sequence. The books are partly erudite and witty travelogues expressing the author’s love of Italy and Spain, amongst other European countries, and of South Carolina, where much of the action takes place, and partly erotic accounts of the art film industry in the 1970s. Many of the characters resemble real movie stars such as Sophia Loren, and the erotic undertones appear to suggest involvement of the author in unconventional multiple-partner liaisons. Much is also made of the difficulties encountered by an author in maintaining a tasteful erotic influence throughout a sequence of novels. The plots of the sequence are strongly linked and related via common characters, locations and motivations, and this example describes the first unsuccessful attempt at a new approach to a well-worn movie subject, including a temperamental Italian actress who has mafia and other sinister connections. As an erotic novel it is perhaps less inspired than its predecessors, but it is still an entertaining read. ( )