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.
No comments:
Post a Comment