Review: "A Grave in the Woods," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

Each novel in Martin Walker’s detective series set in rural France can stand alone, but certain recurring elements provide continuity from one book to the next.

Walker’s latest, this year’s A Grave in the Woods, is no exception. The protagonist, bachelor Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, a rural police chief in the Périgord region, was shot in the shoulder while on duty in the previous novel. He's still out on leave, recovering from his injuries, as the new novel opens.

In a similar vein, Bruno remains determined, as he was in the preceding book, to resist his friends’ efforts to hook him up with Florence, a divorced teacher and mother of twins who clearly is attracted to him. But his resolve may be weakening, at least a bit, perhaps signaling that a liaison is not out of the question.

But you can't hang an entire novel on continuity. What, you ask, is the eponymous grave in the woods?

When a British developer decides to rehab an abandoned hotel in St. Denis, where Bruno lives and works, a World War Two grave is discovered on the property. At first, it appears to be simply the resting place of a dog, but further investigation by Bruno and other local officials uncovers human remains beneath the dog’s marker.

There are three bodies in the grave, one male and two female. The young women are skeletal. There isn’t a shred of clothing on them, meaning they were buried naked. Their identification papers list them as members of the German Luftwaffe. It’s assumed they were sexually assaulted and murdered by French Resistance fighters.

The man is wearing remnants of a naval uniform. He was buried with papers listing him as an Italian submarine officer. But who is he, really? The documents found with the body actually belonged to an Italian who died some 18 months before an ambush by the Resistance killed the man in the grave.

The deaths, particularly those of the women, become a cause célèbre once word of the killings gets out and St. Denis prepares for the arrival of German and Italian diplomats from Paris, who plan to visit the grave and possibly claim the remains.

In the meantime, though, Bruno becomes tangled up in someone’s efforts to hack his phone, his laptop and a police computer network in nearby Périgueux. In a seemingly related move, a would-be thief tries to steal the phone of a woman who works in St. Denis’ town hall.

Against that backdrop, Abby, an American archaeologist who has divorced her abusive and cash-strapped husband, has turned up in St. Denis, hoping to land a job as a tour guide for American visitors. She’s knowledgeable and charming, but edgy. She fears her ex, a computer wiz and cryptocurrency expert, may be trying to track her down in France. Is he behind the hacks? Or is a Russian ransomware gang to blame?

When it rains, it pours, quite literally in this case. Heavy rains trigger potentially catastrophic flooding in sections of the Périgord, including St. Denis. You're unlikely to forget what happens when Bruno spots a partially submerged car in a raging river, with four occupants inside.

A Grave in the Woods isn’t as tightly plotted as earlier novels in the Bruno series, but it’s an enjoyable read nonetheless, with a dramatic conclusion that plays out on not one but two levels. Moreover, the novel seems to feature an unusually large number of appearances by Bruno’s ever-popular basset hound Balzac, which is a definite plus. There’s no such thing as too much of that stubby-legged, floppy-earred charmer.

 

Review: "A Château Under Siege," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

My wife Liz and I had the pleasure of hearing author Martin Walker speak in Belfast, Maine, a few weeks ago, and the man was as fascinating as the protagonist of his detective novels. In fact, both men seem to share certain attributes.

Walker, whose central character is a small-town French police chief named Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, was as gracious in person as Bruno is in print. The author, like his creation, was thoughtful and reflective, with a firm grasp of French history and a heartfelt devotion to the Périgord region of southwest France, where Walker and his fictional detective have homes.

And as I learned when I asked Walker a question, he shares something else with Bruno as well: each man has a basset hound. I don’t know the name of Walker’s dog, but Bruno is the proud owner of Balzac, a hound who is a beloved charmer in the novels.

Bruno lives in the fictional town of St. Denis, but nearby Sarlat, a beautifully preserved medieval town, is quite real. As A Chåteau Under Siege, the 16th novel in the series, unfolds, Brice Kerquelin, a Silicon Valley billionaire and senior official in the French intelligence service, is stabbed and badly injured during a reenactment of Sarlat’s role in the Hundred Years War.

Or so it seems.

While police investigators struggle to determine whether the incident was an accident or an assassination attempt, Bruno and a squad of French soldiers are assigned to protect Kerquelin’s two daughters and several of their father’s high-tech friends who are visiting France to meet with Kerquelin. The guests calmly await Kerquelin's recovery, prompting Bruno to wonder why they seem so nonchalant about their pal’s condition.

Bruno, who often seems to be at least one step ahead of powerful security officials in Paris, begins to suspect that Kerquelin’s misadventure may have been faked. Despite official claims to the contrary, Kerquelin was not rushed to a nearby military hospital. No specialists were called in to operate on him. And what was initially presumed to be his blood at the scene of the Sarlat reenactment turns out to have been pig blood.

So who staged the hoax? And why? If Kerquelin is uninjured, where is he? Bruno suspects that senior bureaucrats in Paris know the answers to those questions. But in the short term, at least, they are keeping him in the dark.

Bruno may be a village cop in rural France, far removed from political machinations in Paris and goings-on in the wider world. But Walker routinely injects foreign intrigue into his plots, and Bruno invariably gets dragged into their orbit.

In A Chåteau Under Siege, Bruno meets a Russian intelligence agent who claims to be in France to prevent mercenaries hired by Russia from killing key players in a possible French-Taiwanese technology venture. Tensions rise as the French government, with a big assist from Bruno, races to avert the threatened murder spree.

Amid all of the sleuthing and skulduggery, Bruno, a reluctant bachelor, inevitably finds time for diversions that range from vexing to  enjoyable.

His friends are conspiring to hook him up with Florence, a divorced teacher and mother of young twins who love Bruno almost as much as they adore Balzac. Bruno, of course, resents the meddling. But his weekly tour of the local outdoor market, a Tuesday morning staple in St. Denis for more than 700 years, boosts his spirits (and those of the hungry reader as well).

One of Walker’s descriptions of the food and wine on offer at the market covers three lengthy, mouthwatering paragraphs. If Balzac is one of the most beloved characters in the Bruno novels, the culinary attractions of the Périgord are a character in their own right. And it doesn't hurt that Bruno, a skilled cook, gardener and chicken owner, can easily concoct a tasty dish at a moments notice, seemingly out of thin air.

Review: "To Kill a Troubadour," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

Don’t mess with success.

That could be the motto of popular mystery writer Martin Walker, whose ongoing series set in the French countryside has been winning fans since the first novel came out 15 years ago.

Walker’s books, which star village policeman Benoît Courrèges (known to one and all as Bruno), always feature several reassuringly predictable elements, but unpredictable plots as well. A former soldier and a gourmet cook, Bruno longs to settle down and get married, but the apparent love of his life has moved to Paris in pursuit of a high-powered career and he cannot imagine abandoning St. Denis to follow her.

Bruno’s unsettled love life; the charms of St. Denis, the colorful small-town he calls home; and his warm relationships with a close circle of friends and hunting buddies routinely figure in the series. So does the remarkable history of France’s Périgord region, and Bruno’s knack for whipping up mouthwatering meals, even while juggling tricky criminal investigations.

And let’s not forget the ever-present and always-delightful Balzac, Bruno’s beloved basset hound. For an added touch of cuteness, Balzac is accompanied in To Kill a Troubadour by one of his offspring, Bruce, a puppy whom Bruno is caring for while Bruce’s owner is away on business.

Foreign intrigue and international shenanigans are staples of the Bruno series as well. In To Kill a Troubadour, Spain bans a song composed by a Frenchman who supports a campaign in Catalonia to secede from Spain. The ban triggers outrage in France, where officials see it as an attempt by a foreign government to censor the musical tastes of both Spaniards and the French.

French police fear that two extreme nationalists from Spain, including a sniper, may be in France to kill Joël Martin, the Frenchman who composed “Song for Catalonia.” Officials suspect Russia is behind the murder plot, which may be designed to create a rift between Spain and France as part of a larger Russian quest to destabilize Europe.

The hunt for the would-be assassins unfolds as St. Denis prepares for an outdoor concert starring Les Troubadours, a folk group that plans to perform “Song for Catalonia.” Days before the concert is scheduled to take place, arson destroys Les Troubadours’ recording studio.

Walker blends the personal with the professional in the Bruno novels. The personal crisis in To Kill a Troubadour involves Florence, a well-loved science teacher and mother of twins who lives and works in St. Denis.

Florence divorced her abusive husband Casimir some time ago and wants nothing to do with him now, but she is horrified to learn that he has been released from prison and hopes to be reunited with his children.

Bruno works to block Casimir from setting foot in St. Denis while a sympathetic prosecutor tries to rescind Casimir’s release from prison because Florence and other victims of his violence were not invited to testify at the parole hearing. Florence is so distraught that she’s contemplating moving to French-speaking Québec, to put as much distance as possible between her children and Casimir.

Persuading Florence to stay in St. Denis, thwarting her brutal ex-husband’s plans, and derailing a Russian scheme to kill a songwriter — it’s more than enough to keep a cop fully occupied. But Bruno, being Bruno, still finds time to work his magic in the kitchen.

Review: "The Coldest Case," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

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.

Review: "The Shooting at Château Rock," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

Having read a dozen of Martin Walker's novels featuring Bruno Courrèges, the unmarried (but ever-hopeful) chief of police (and lone local cop) in the French village of St. Denis, I've come to expect certain things from the series.

They include Bruno’s knack for successfully closing major criminal investigations involving international intrigue on French soil. Bruno never is in charge of these probes, which also involve France's national law-enforcement agencies. But he always seems to hold center stage, and The Shooting at Château Rock is no exception.

Predictably (and comfortingly), a recurring cast of characters pops up once again. There’s St. Denis’ shrewd, politically connected mayor; Florence, a local teacher and single mother of two; Pamela, a shrewd businesswoman with Scottish roots who has an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with Bruno; J-J, Bruno's friend and a senior detective in the regional office of the National Police; and assorted locals who share Bruno’s love of  fine dining and local wines.

Despite the sometimes frenetic pace required by his job, Bruno finds time yet again to tend to his garden and his chickens, whip up gourmet meals for his pals and ride his horse Hector across the gorgeous valleys and ridges of France’s Périgord region. Another regular from recent books in the series is on hand (on paw?) as well: Balzac, Bruno’s beloved basset hound, who consistently charms everyone he meets with his floppy ears and cheerful ways.

Walker’s earlier novels are mysteries, of course, and The Shooting at Château Rock falls into that category as well. A central question this time around is whether an elderly farmer who died shortly after selling his property to an insurance company was a victim of foul play.

Add to that a fatal car crash that appears to be a multiple murder rather than an accident and a tense face-off between Bruno and a shotgun-toting activist and you have the makings of another compelling tale that allows Bruno’s solid sleuthing skills to shine, even as he supposedly plays second fiddle to the National Police and powerful Paris-based security agents.

But let’s get back to Balzac. He plays an even bigger role in The Shooting at Château Rock than he has in previous outings, thanks to Bruno’s decision to introduce him to “a lady basset,” in hopes of continuing Balzac’s line.

Balzac’s newfound love life may be a mere subplot, but it’s definitely one off the novel’s highlights, particularly for readers who have grown to love the short-legged hound with the full-sized personality. Readers unfamiliar with the mating practices of dogs may learn a thing or two.

All in all, this 13th Bruno mystery is an enjoyable addition to the series, whose stars include the Périgord itself, a region known for its history, gastronomy and natural beauty.

Review: "The Body in the Castle Well," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

 

I would never suggest that Martin Walker has developed a cookie-cutter formula for his enticing crime novels, which are set in the countryside of France. But the books in the series share several elements that provide continuity.

For one thing, the setting — the Périgord region  — remains unchanged from one tale to the next. Mouth-watering culinary delights are guaranteed as each plot unfolds. Regular characters pop up time after time. Revealing glimpses of French culture and history are a staple of the series. Bruno Courrèges, ostensibly nothing more than a small-town cop in rural St. Denis, is sure to play a central role in solving whatever dastardly deed occurs in his village or its environs. And without fail, Bruno is assisted, or at least watched over, by a pet basset hound.

In Body in the Castle Well, the 12th book in the series, Claudia Muller, a wealthy American studying with a renowned but possibly dishonest art historian and collector, is found dead. What first appears to be an accident turns out to be anything but.

Over the course of some 300+ pages, Body in the Castle Well covers a lot of territory as the investigation unfolds, touching on falconry, the Renaissance, French resistance and Nazi collaboration during World War Two, Algeria’s struggle for independence, and the local ties of Josephine Baker, the American-born French entertainer and Allied spy.

Review: "A Taste for Vengeance," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

The bureaucratic winds bring a well-deserved but not necessarily welcome promotion for Benoit “Bruno” Courrèges in Martin Walker’s 11th novel about the beloved police chief of St. Denis, a fictional town in the Périgord region of France.

After years as the village’s lone municipal cop, Bruno’s domain is expanded to include overseeing officers in nearby towns. But the popular chief — a veteran, rugby and tennis coach, gourmet cook, history buff and reluctant bachelor -- has bigger problems than his growing mountain of supervisory paperwork.

When the wife of a retired British general and her mysterious male companion are found dead, Bruno is pulled into a wide-ranging investigation with international implications involving Scotland Yard and the FBI. Was it a murder-suicide? Or a double murder committed by France-based IRA agents?

Even as the search for answers continues, Bruno has a more personal preoccupation. Will the pregnancy of his promising 19-year-old rugby protégé, Paulette, destroy her shot at national stardom? Lightening the mood for readers: Bruno's impressive culinary skills and the presence of his loyal sidekick Balzac, a basset hound.

Review: "The Templars' Last Secret," Martin Walker

 By Paul Carrier

For a bucolic community nestled in the Périgord region of southwestern France, the fictional town of St. Denis attracts more than its share of evildoers and dastardly deeds.

But Benoît "Bruno" Courrèges, a decorated former soldier and chief of the village’s one-man police force, is quite capable of coping with such threats with a little help from his friends, when he isn’t whipping up gourmet meals, feeding his chickens, tending his garden, lamenting his bachelorhood or making the rounds with his trusty basset hound Balzac.

In The Templars’ Last Secret, the 10th book in Martin Walker’s mystery series, murder and torture prove to be preludes to a terrorist attack. Subplots involving the discovery of a medieval tomb in a sealed cave beneath the ruins of an ancient chateau, and a return visit by one of Bruno’s former lovers, help lighten the mood.

But be forewarned. You should never read a Bruno novel, including this one, on an empty stomach; the meals described therein are just too mouthwatering.

Review: "Fatal Pursuit," Martin Walker

 By Paul Carrier 

Martin Walker has released more than a dozen mysteries starring Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a lovelorn bachelor and respected gourmet cook who serves as the unconventional chief of the one-man police force in tiny St. Denis, a fictional town in the south of France.

Fatal Pursuit, the ninth book in the series, finds Bruno working with other law-enforcement agencies to solve first one then two murders in the village, all while helping a coordinated European drive to destroy a terrorism-funding network.

Is a competitive search for a long-lost vintage auto linked to either killing? Will Bruno, who was orphaned as a youth, finally find marriage and familial bliss?

As a whodunit, Fatal Pursuit isn’t as suspenseful as earlier books in the series, but other elements, including Bruno’s ongoing search for a mate, his love of fine food, and the companionship of his beloved basset hound Balzac, compensate nicely.

Review: "The Patriarch," Martin Walker

 By Paul Carrier

Benoît "Bruno" Courrèges, the protagonist in Martin Walker’s mystery series set in rural France, is a bachelor, a gourmet cook, a chicken-keeping gardener and a lover of bassets and horses. He’s also the police chief in the village of St. Denis which, fortunately for the reader, has more than its share of untimely deaths.

In The Patriarch, the eighth novel in the series, Bruno is invited to the birthday party of Marco “The Patriarch” Desaix, a 90-year-old World War Two flying ace and Bruno’s childhood hero. The festivities take a tragic turn when Marco’s friend Gilbert Clamartin creates a scene at the party and dies shortly thereafter under mysterious circumstances.

As Bruno digs into the case, he’s brutally attacked outside his home and comes to realize that the Patriarch and his clan have secrets aplenty. But do they include murder?

Review: "The Children Return," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

This is the seventh installment in Martin Walker’s mystery series starring Benoît "Bruno" Courrèges, police chief in the fictional village of St. Denis in France’s Périgord region.

 

Even as Bruno finds himself investigating the torture and brutal killing of an undercover French agent, he gets drawn into the return to France of Sami, an autistic, Algerian-born young man who grew up in St. Denis but was lured to Afghanistan by terrorists.

The murder of the agent in St. Denis is tied to jihadist efforts to find and kill Sami before he gives French and American investigators valuable intelligence about Islamic extremists.

Review: "The Resistance Man," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

Benoit Courrèges is a busy man even in the best of times, which isn’t surprising for a village cop in rural France who’s entire police force consists of . . . well . . . himself.

But Bruno, as he is known to one and all in fictional St. Denis and throughout the rest of the Périgord region, is spread especially thin in The Resistance Man, the sixth novel in Martin Walker's “Mystery of the French Countryside” series.

Bruno’s sleuthing foray — forays, actually — begins when he discovers that a recently deceased man who fought with the French Resistance during World War Two may have been linked to a real-life train robbery that ostensibly provided much-needed funding for the cash-strapped Resistance in 1944.

In quick succession, Bruno learns that the home of a retired British spymaster has been burgled while the owner was away. Worse still, a British antiques dealer whose business involved buying and selling antiques in both Britain and France is found brutally murdered near a home he had rented.

Bruno comes to suspect that the train heist, the break-in and the killing are, in fact, connected, but his investigations are both helped and hindered by the intervention of national police agencies, and powerful political forces in Paris.

Orphaned as a child, Bruno became a cop after he was wounded as a soldier during a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. A gourmet cook who loves gardening and horseback riding, Bruno is a bachelor who longs to settle down and have a family, but he continues to find himself stymied in that department.

As in previous novels in the series, Bruno remains romantically entangled with Pamela, a Scot who lives in St. Denis, and Isabelle, an ambitious French policewoman who has moved from the Périgord to Paris. But marriage is unlikely in either case, seemingly leaving Bruno with no prospects.

Romantic travails aside, Bruno leads an interesting life in St. Denis and its environs, in no small measure because he is trying to train a basset hound puppy whom he has named Balzac. Bruno puts his impressive cooking skills to good use on a regular basis, which will leave readers wishing they were guests at his table.

Even Balzac gets the culinary treatment, thanks to home-baked biscuits that contain milk, brown flour, eggs, brown sugar, ham and garlic. Sometimes, gravy and bread crumbs as well.

When he isn’t whipping up a delectable meal with ease, Bruno often finds himself dining out, either at a nearby home or in a local eatery owned by a restaurateur named Ivan, whose ever-changing menu depends in part on his latest sexual conquest. A Belgian lover introduced moules, a dish combining mussels and fries; a Spaniard, gazpacho and paella; a German, Wiener schnitzel and potato salad.

Walker takes full advantage of the Périgord’s attributes by working travel notes and history lessons into his novels. When Bruno visits a fortified medieval town on police business, for example, the reader learns that such towns, known as bastides, were built on grid patterns around a market square, “with a church at one corner that could act as a fortress” in times of war. Bastides are but one of the many attractions in a region blessed with prehistoric cave art, Roman ruins and Renaissance châteaux.

The Resistance Man marries a complex and likable protagonist, a beautiful and culturally significant setting, and an intriguing plot. Then too, there is the affectionate and adorable Balzac, who has yet to grow into his long ears, and sometimes trips over them.

Review: "The Devil's Cave," Martin Walker

By Paul Carrier

One of the joys of reading a series, in addition to following the progress of the extended story line, is revisiting characters whom we already know but may have lost touch with for a spell, if we haven’t spent time with them lately.

So it is with Martin Walker’s “Mystery of the French Countryside” novels starring village policeman Benoit Courrèges, known in France’s Périgord region, and more specifically on his home turf of St. Denis, as Bruno. The fifth entry in the series, The Devil’s Cave, finds Bruno tackling multiple investigations simultaneously, including one baffling death that may or may not have been a suicide and another that may or may not have been an accident.

First, a naked — and quite dead —  woman is found in a leaky boat, floating down the Vézère River, which bisects the fictional town. Her appearance, and the contents of the boat, suggest she may have been involved in a satanic ritual.

Compounding Bruno’s problems, unsettling signs discovered in a local cave trigger speculation that a Black Mass was performed there, inevitably leading to rumors of a link to the unidentified woman’s death.

On yet another front, the mayor of St. Denis assigns Bruno to investigate the financiers behind a proposed “vacation village” slated for construction in the town. Key players in that venture previously persuaded officials in a nearby municipality to make costly infrastructure improvements for a high-end resort which turned out to be a disappointing blight on the local landscape.

Whether all of these developments are interconnected is an open question. And there may be yet another piece to the puzzle.

A local farmer with a serious drinking problem dies in a suspicious motorcycle crash, shortly after his 18-year-old daughter, who has fled the family home to take a job in St. Denis’ ritzy new auberge, says she never wants to see her father again. The developer of that hotel is involved with the proposed resort as well.

Against this backdrop of contemporary skulduggery, Walker introduces a historical angle. Once the dead woman has been identified, investigators learn that she claimed to be a direct descendant of the Marquise de Montespan, a mistress of King Louis XIV who supposedly participated in a Black Mass to secure the king’s affection for her.

Bruno makes for a fascinating protagonist. Orphaned as a child, he went on to enlist in the military and was wounded during a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans before he took up police work. A bachelor and a gourmet cook who lives in a home that he built with help from some friends, he rarely carries a gun, has a fondness for basset hounds (including his new pup Balzac), and coaches local kids in tennis and other sports.

Bruno also has an intriguing but unsettled love life, dividing his time between Pamela, a Brit who lives in St. Denis when she isn’t in Scotland caring for her ailing mother; and Isabelle, an ambitious, career-driven policewoman now based in Paris who periodically returns to St. Denis for a visit. Pamela does not want to settle down with Bruno, and as much as he would love to do just that with Isabelle, he refuses to relocate to Paris.

The setting of Walker’s novels is a character in its own right, thanks to the region’s natural beauty, rich history and vibrant culture. Known for its cuisine and famed for its truffles and local wines, the Périgord is dotted with Roman ruins and prehistoric sites, including the painted cave of Lascaux. The region, where Walker has a home, is dotted with castles and figured prominently in the Hundred Years’ War.

St. Denis, Walker tells us, is a small town “in the gastronomic and sporting heartland of France.” Unlike the Périgord, the village where Bruno lives and works is a figment of Walker’s imagination, but he consistently brings it and its colorful denizens to life. The sometimes quirky cast includes, among many others, a tourism-savvy entrepreneur who runs a theme park where Joan of Arc is burned at the stake twice daily.