''Hot Water'' by P.G. Wodehouse is the 1932 farcical comedy set at the fictional Château Blissac in Brittany, France. The plot revolves around a stolen letter, a domineering wife pushing for her husband to become an ambassador, and an American millionaire caught up in a web of jewel thieves and con artists.
The story features a highly interconnected cast of characters: J. Wellington Gedge, an American desperately wanting to escape his domineering wife and her political ambitions, pining for the simpler life in California; Mrs. Gedge, Gedge's imperious wife, who uses a blackmailing letter to manipulate the prohibitionist Senator Opal into helping her husband land an ambassadorship; Packy Franklyn, A rich ex-footballer and sportsman who gets wrapped up in the resulting chaos, teaming up with a burglar named Soup Slattery in an effort to recover the missing letter; and Jane Opal, The Senator's daughter, who eventually ends up the object of Packy's romantic efforts.