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.
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