The cover of The Coldest Case leaves no doubt that this entry in Martin Walker’s long-running series is yet another crime novel. There's the title itself, of course. And the notation below it that the novel is a “A Mystery of the French Countryside.”
But as every fan of Walker’s novels knows, enforcing the law in a rural corner of southwest France is far from the only preoccupation of village police chief Benoit “Bruno” Courrèges, the series’ protagonist.
A bachelor and former soldier who was wounded in the line of duty, Bruno longs to settle down and get married. He coaches kids’ sports in St. Denis, where he works and lives; knows every resident and likes almost all of them; dearly loves his basset hound, Balzac; regularly enjoys the company of a close circle of local friends; loves running and horseback riding; and faithfully tends to the needs of his chickens and geese.
There is one aspect of Bruno’s personal life, though, that takes precedence over all others (except for the all-important Balzac, of course). Bruno is a gourmet cook who routinely whips up mouth-watering meals that often share star billing with local wines from the Périgord region, where the (fictional) town of St. Denis is located.
In this outing, it doesn’t take Bruno very long to head for the kitchen. The first example occurs a mere 17 pages in, a “simple meal” of marinaded salmon; a sauce made of Dijon mustard, cider vinegar, honey and sunflower oil; a venison casserole; and homemade apple pie. With ice cream, of course. By Bruno's standards, that really is a simple meal.
But The Coldest Case is a mystery, after all, and Bruno is a cop with a knack for playing a major role in solving high-profile crimes whose implications often extend far beyond St. Denis. Despite his generally low-key demeanor and seemingly humble job, Bruno has powerful police and political connections that stretch all the way to Paris, where his talents are known and appreciated.
This time around, Bruno gets involved in a detective’s ongoing obsession with solving a murder that occurred in St. Denis 30 years earlier. The victim remains unidentified, but Bruno’s friend J.J., a senior detective in the regional headquarters of the Police Nationale and the man who first investigated the murder, remains so preoccupied with the case that he has kept the victim’s skull. An odd thing to do, perhaps, but it will prove helpful.
Clues begin to emerge over time, and investigators make progress in trying to establish the identity of the victim. But the man whom police come to suspect is the killer denies any involvement in the murder.
The case devekops political overtones with international implications when police begin to wonder if the suspected killer and the presumed victim were part of an East German spy network that had agents in France and other countries, before the reunification of Germany.
Bad things may not always happen in threes, but they certainly do in this case. While the police try to untangle the murder and officials in Paris grapple with the killing’s possible link to foreign espionage, a drought in the Périgord triggers widespread forest fires, forcing evacuations and threatening the survival of villages and ancient castles.
Still, one staple of Martin Walker’s Bruno novels is that goodness and virtue, in one form or another, always emerge. So it is here as well.
In The Coldest Case, Bruno saves a young woman by disabling a would-be rapist. He manages to produce complex and scrumptious meals on tight deadlines, despite his professional responsibilities. He meets up, yet again, with an old flame. He finds a truly unique way to help fight a raging fire. And Balzac, his dog, fathers a much-anticipated litter of healthy and beautiful puppies.
Life isn’t always good. But sometimes, it truly is.
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