Synopsis
The fourth installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Bruno, Chief of Police.
It's spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courr�ges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi, and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team searching for Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it's up to Bruno to solve the case. But the task will not be easy, not with a meddlesome new magistrate, a series of attacks by animal rights activists on local foie gras producers, and a summit between France and Spain approaching-not to mention two beautiful, brilliant women vying for Bruno's affections.
Review
MARTIN WALKER is senior director of the Global Business Policy Council, a private think tank for CEOs of major corporations, based in Washington, D.C. He is also editor in chief emeritus and an international affairs columnist at United Press International. His three previous novels in the Bruno series are Bruno, Chief of Police; The Dark Vineyard; and Black Diamond. He lives in Washington, D.C., and the Dordogne.1
It felt like the first morning of spring. The early sun was chasing the mist from the wooded hollows that sheltered the small streams flowing busily down to the River V�z�re. Drops of dew sparkled on the new buds that seemed to have appeared overnight on the bare trees. The air smelled somehow different, fresh and hopeful, and enlivened by the tuneful notes of a dozen different birdsongs. Excited by the change in scents and season, even after his early morning walk through the woods, Gigi the basset hound thrust his nose at the open window of the small police van that descended the steep and curving lane from his master's home. At the wheel, Bruno was singing a half-�remembered song about springtime in Paris. Vaguely thinking of the duties of the day that stretched before him, when rounding the last bend he was suddenly forced to brake.
For the first time in his memory, the quiet road ahead was blocked with a line of cars and tractors, their engines running and their drivers' heads poking from windows. Some were out of their cars, looking at the road that led to St. Denis. Several were talking urgently into cell phones. In the distance a car horn sounded, swiftly joined by others in discordant chorus. As Bruno surveyed the scene his own phone began to ring. He checked the screen, recognized the name of Pierre, a neighbor who lived farther up the road. He ignored it, assuming Pierre would be calling to complain at being stuck in the jam ahead. There had to be an accident of some sort.
Bruno pushed aside the thought that he could have avoided this delay if he'd stayed the night with Pamela, the English-woman he'd been seeing since the autumn. She had called off the arrangement that he would dine with her and stay the night, saying she'd finally secured an early morning appointment with the mar�chal, the traveling farrier who was to reshoe her horses. Pamela postponed their meetings too frequently for Bruno's comfort, and he was never quite sure whether she was cooling on their relationship or simply wary of commitment. They were to meet again that evening, he reminded himself, without feeling greatly reassured. He parked the van and climbed out to investigate. The best view of the long traffic jam was commanded by Alain, who kept a dairy farm farther up the road to Les Eyzies.
"Geese-�the road's full of ducks and geese," he called down to Bruno from his perch high on a tractor. "They're all over the place."
Bruno heard the sound of rival honking as the geese called back in response to the car horns, and he quickly clambered up beside Alain to peer ahead. The traffic jam stretched as far up the road as he could see. Darting between the stalled cars were perhaps hundreds of ducks and geese, streaming through the woods on the side of the road and heading across it to settle in a broad pond that spread across the meadow, swollen by the spring rains.
"That's Louis Villatte's farm, behind those woods," said Alain. "A tree must have come down and broken his fence, let them all escape. There's over three thousand birds in there. Or rather, there used to be. Looks like he's lost a few to the cars too."
"Have you got his number?" Bruno asked. Alain nodded. "Call him, see if he knows his birds have escaped. Then go through those woods and see if you can help Louis block the gap in his fence. I'll try and sort this out here. Join you later."
Bruno went back to his van, released Gigi, and walked with him down the road, brushing aside the drivers' angry queries. A driver he knew was looking mournfully at a broken headlamp while a wounded goose lay half pinned under his car, honking feebly.
"You grew up on a farm, Pierre," Bruno told him, rushing past. "Put the poor devil out of its misery." Looking back, he saw Pierre bend to grip the goose behind its head and twist. The bird fluttered wildly and then went limp. Even when the farm boy grew up like Pierre to work in an accountant's office, he hadn't lost the skill.
When he came to the main grouping of birds, advancing in a jumbled column from the woods, Bruno saw that the road ahead was blocked by some stalled cars coming the other way. He briefly considered using Gigi to turn the birds back, but they would go off and cross the road elsewhere. There was no stopping this exodus, so he might as well try to speed it up and clear the road. He persuaded the leading cars in each queue to reverse a little to make a broader passage to let the birds pass freely across to the pond. Some drivers tried to argue, but he pointed out that the sooner he could stop the supply of ducks, the sooner the road would unblock. He left them grumbling and took Gigi into the trees, trotting past the trail of ducks and geese that was still pottering and waddling its way from the Villatte farm. Bruno smiled to himself, wondering if the birds felt a sense of escape or curiosity, of adventure triggered by the coming of springtime.
Louis and his wife were already at the huge hole torn in the fence. No tree had fallen, no tractor had ridden through the sturdy barrier of wooden posts and chicken wire that ringed the farm. Instead, whole fence posts had been hauled from the earth and the wire cut. With boards and old doors and cardboard boxes stuffed beneath an ancient tractor, Louis was trying to plug the gaps in the fence. His wife and eldest son were flapping their arms, and their dog was barking to shoo away the ducks and geese following their fellows toward the freedom of the woods.
Without being told, Gigi darted forward to help drive the birds back from the fence, and Bruno helped Alain to haul some branches from broken trees to seal the remaining gaps in the wire. Once the makeshift barrier was in place, Louis came forward to shake their hands. Gigi and Louis's dog sniffed politely at each other's tails and then sat beside each other, staring at any bird daring to approach.
"We've been at this since daybreak," Louis said. "You see how big this gap is? Some bastard ripped this fence down deliberately and did a good job of it."
"And we know who," added Sandrine, his wife. "Look at this, stuck on the bits of the fence they didn't tear down." She handed Bruno a photocopied leaflet, sealed inside a transparent plastic envelope.
"STOP cruelty to animals. Boycott foie gras," he read. There was a smudged photocopied image of a duck held down in a narrow cage. A flexible tube hanging from above was thrust into its mouth by an unidentified man who was stretching the duck's neck taut for the force-�feeding. At the bottom, it read "Contactez PETAFrance.com."
"Who's this PETA?" asked Alain, peering over Bruno's shoulder.
"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals," said Bruno. "It's an American thing, maybe British, but it's growing in France. They made a big fuss up in Paris about battery chickens and veal, those calves kept in pens. Looks like they've started running a campaign against foie gras."
"But that's our livelihood," said Sandrine. "And we don't make foie gras, we just raise the birds."
"And look at this," said Louis. "The wire's been cut with proper cutters. This was organized." He showed Bruno the snipped strands of wire. "Then they pulled it away somewhere, hiding the stretches of wire they cut. I sent the other boy out looking for it in the woods."
"City bastards," grunted Alain. "Don't know the first thing about the country and they come here like a bunch of terrorists and try to ruin people." He turned aside and spat. "You find out who they are, Bruno, and we'll take care of the rest."
Bruno ignored Alain's outrage on behalf of his fellow farmer. "All the birds seem to be heading for that pond on the far side of the road," he told Louis. "Have you got some way to round them up and bring them back?"
"I'll ring the food bell. That brings most of them running. And for the rest, I've got some netting. That's how we usually round them up. I'll put them in the trailer and bring them back once I've got this fence fixed."
"Sooner the better, because they've blocked the whole road into town," said Bruno. "That's what brought me here."
"Crazy birds," said Louis, grimacing in rueful affection. "They've got a perfectly good pond back in the field, but give them a sniff of someplace new and off they go." He gestured back beyond his house where already some of the ducks, frustrated at their efforts to escape through the newly sealed barrier, were splashing and paddling serenely in their old familiar pond.
A young boy of about ten labored toward them from the woods, proudly hauling a section of wire fence.
"I found it, Papa," he shouted. "And there's more. I can show you where." His face broke into a grin at seeing Bruno, who taught him to play rugby in winter and tennis in summer. "Bonjour, Monsieur Bruno." He dropped the fence and came forward to shake hands.
"Bonjour, Daniel. Did you see or hear anything when this happened?"
"Nothing. The first I heard was when Papa woke us all up to come out and save the birds."
"I heard something, a duck call, a single one and then repeated, just before the cockerel started," said Louis. "So it must have been a bit before dawn. I remember thinking that's odd, because the ducks don't usually stir until after the hens."
"Could it have been a lure, one of those hunter's calls?" Bruno asked. "Whoever cut the fence must have had some way to wake the birds and tempt them to move. They'd have wanted them out before you and the family were awake."
"It must have been something like that," Sandrine said. "The birds tend to stick around the barn, waiting to be fed. They've never gone off before, even when we had that storm that knocked part of the fence down."
"I'd better get back to the road and see that jam is cleared," said Bruno.
"Before you go, what do you know about this PETA?" asked Sandrine.
"Not a lot, but I'll find out," Bruno replied. "I think you've lost one or two birds to the cars, but not many."
"Those birds are worth six euros each to us," said Sandrine. "We can't afford to lose any of them, what with the bank loan we have to pay until we sell this lot. What if those PETA people come again?"
"I'll shoot the bastards," Louis said. "We'll take turns keeping watch, sit up all night if we have to."
"You have a right to protect your property with reasonable force, according to the law," said Bruno. "But people interpret "reasonable force' in different ways. If you hear anything happening again, it's best you call me. Whatever you do, don't use a firearm or any kind of weapon. The best thing is to photograph them so we can identify who they are. If you have any lights you can rig up, or one of those motion detectors . . ."
"A camera won't do any good," said Alain. "Even with photos the damn courts will take their side. They're all mad Greenies, the magistrates. Then there's those food inspectors and all the other rules and regulations, tying us up in knots."
"I think I know who it is," said Sandrine. "It's those students at the archaeology site who came in last week, working on some dig with that German professor, over toward Campagne. They're all staying at the municipal campground. This time of year, they're the only strangers around here and you know what those students are like. They're all Greens now."
Bruno nodded. "I'll check it out. See you later." Along the fence he saw the fluttering of another of the leaflets inside a plastic bag, one of the kind that could be sealed and used in freezers. He took out a handkerchief and gingerly removed the pins that held it to the wire. Forensics might get something from it. There were several more attached along the fence and he took another. He nodded at Alain. "Do you want to come with me? You'll have to move your tractor."
As he reached the road, where the jam was steadily clearing itself, Bruno's phone rang again. He checked the screen, saw the name "Horst," and this time he answered. Horst Vogelstern was the German professor of archaeology in charge of the student volunteers at the dig. For more than twenty years Horst had spent his vacations at a small house he owned on the outskirts of St. Denis. He ran digs in the V�z�re Valley that the local tourist board liked to proclaim as the cradle of prehistoric man. The first site of Cro-�Magnon man had been found in the valley over a hundred years earlier, and the famous cave paintings of Lascaux were farther up the river. It was a source of pride to Bruno that he lived in this valley that could claim the longest continuous human habitation of anywhere on earth.
Bruno had attended a couple of Horst's lectures, delivered in excellent if strongly accented French. He had visited his digs and read a couple of articles Horst had published in the popular monthly Dossiers d'Arch�ologie. Normally a quiet man, Horst became passionate when he talked of his subject, the great mystery of the replacement of the Neanderthals by the Cro-�Magnons some thirty thousand years ago. Had it been violent? Did they interbreed? Were the Neanderthals wiped out by some plague or disease? It was, said Horst, the crucial question regarding our human origins. Whenever Horst spoke, Bruno caught a sense of the excitement that gripped the scholar.
"Horst," he answered. "How are you? I was just on my way to see you at the dig."
"Good, we need you here right away. And you had better bring a doctor with you. We've found a body."
"Congratulations. Isn't that what you wanted to find?"
"Yes, yes, but I want skeletons from the distant past. This one is wearing a St. Christopher medal around his neck and I think he's also wearing a Swatch. This is your department, Bruno, not mine."
The Crowded Grave
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Bruno, Chief of Police: It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi, and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team searching for Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it’s up to Bruno to solve the case. But the task will not be easy, not with a meddlesome new magistrate, a series of attacks by animal rights activists on local foie gras producers, and a summit between France and Spain approaching—not to mention two beautiful, brilliant women vying for Bruno’s affections.
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Bruno, Chief of Police: It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his ..."
The Children Return
With clever twists and action aplenty, this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno is a journey to St. Denis that readers won't soon forget. Bruno’s village of St. Denis has been called many things, but a hotbed of international intrigue has never been one of them ... until now. When an undercover agent is found murdered just as a prodigal son is set to retun from a grim tour in the Middle East, the small town suddenly finds itself host to a determined global tribunal, threatening the usual cheer brought by St. Denis’s annual wine festival.
With clever twists and action aplenty, this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno is a journey to St. Denis that readers won't soon forget."
Fatal Pursuit
A pair of murders, a romance, and rivals in pursuit of a long-lost vintage car make for another mystery for Bruno, Chief of Police, in this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. It’s the start of summer, and Bruno’s found himself the last-minute replacement navigator in a car rally race. The event has attracted a spate of outsiders with deep pockets, big egos and, in the case of one young Englishman, an intriguing story about a lost Bugatti Type 57C. Having disappeared somewhere in France during World War II, and worth millions of dollars, it’s among the most beautiful cars ever made, driving its pursuers mad with greed. When a local scholar turns up dead, Bruno suspects unnatural causes. Still, while life may offer its challenges—often in the form of distractingly comely Parisiennes—there is always time for a good bottle and a home-cooked meal.
A pair of murders, a romance, and rivals in pursuit of a long-lost vintage car make for another mystery for Bruno, Chief of Police, in this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno."
Black Diamond
A noted truffle expert is murdered in this installment of the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. Filled with an abundance of food and wine (including, bien sûr, many, many truffles), Black Diamond is a deliciously entertaining concoction that delivers all the complexity and delights of the Dordogne itself. "A charming French village, great food, eccentric characters and a mystery to nudge things along.... Savory indeed" —The Seattle Times Something dangerous is afoot in St. Denis. In the space of a few weeks, the normally sleepy village sees attacks on Vietnamese vendors, arson at a local Asian restaurant, subpar truffles from China smuggled into outgoing shipments at a nearby market—all of it threatening the Dordogne’s truffle trade, worth millions of dollars each year, and all of it spelling trouble for Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police. When one of his hunting partners, a noted truffle expert, is murdered, Bruno’s investigation into the murky events unfolding around St. Denis becomes infinitely more complicated. His friend wasn’t just a connoisseur of French delicacies, he was a former high-profile intelligence agent—and someone wanted him dead. As the strange crimes continue, Bruno’s detective work takes him from sunlit markets to dim cafés, from luxurious feasts to tense negotiations—from all of the paradisial pleasures of the region to its shadowy underworld—and reunites him with a lost love, an ambitious policewoman also assigned to the case.
Filled with an abundance of food and wine (including, bien sûr, many, many truffles), Black Diamond is a deliciously entertaining concoction that delivers all the complexity and delights of the Dordogne itself."
A Market Tale
The eighth installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. Between the seventeenth-century mairie and the stone bridge over the river that winds through town, the village of St. Denis hosts its weekly market, as well-stocked with local gossip as with fresh produce and pâtés. As summer blooms, the newest talk of the town is the rapport between Kati, a Swiss tourist, and Marcel, a popular stall owner whom Kati meets over his choice strawberries. None are happier than police chief Bruno to see Marcel, a young widower, interested in love again, but as his friend’s romance deepens, Bruno senses trouble in the form of Marcel’s meddlesome sister Nadette. Even as Kati begins to put down roots in St. Denis, vending her delicious baking in the market, it seems the overbearing Nadette will stop at nothing to make her feel unwelcome. When her schemes reach the limits of law, Bruno takes it upon himself to set things right. An eBook short. A Vintage Short.
The eighth installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno."
The Devil's Cave
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series: It's spring in St. Denis. The village choir is preparing for its Easter concert, the wildflowers are blooming, and among the lazy whorls of the river a dead woman is found floating in a boat. This means another case for Bruno, the town’s cherished chief of police. With the discovery of sinister markings and black candles near the body, it seems to Bruno that the occult might be involved. And as questions mount—most notably about a troubling real estate proposal in the region and the sudden reappearance of an elderly countess—Bruno and his colleagues are drawn ever closer to a climactic showdown in the Gouffre de Colombac: the place locals call the Devil’s Cave.
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series: It's spring in St. Denis."
Dark Vineyard
'BEGUILING, EVOCATIVE, WONDERFUL ... THE ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH OF FRANCE' Francis Wheen In the second mystery of this mouthwatering and bestselling series, Bruno, Chief of Police of a small rural French town, must balance local tradition and modern progress while bringing a killer to justice. Just before dawn one summer morning Bruno is summoned by the wail of the siren in the little town of St Denis in the Périgord. A fire is raging in a local barn and spreading to the surrounding fields. When Bruno arrives at the scene, the smell of petrol leaves no doubt: it was arson. The barn belongs to an agricultural research company experimenting with genetically modified crops - an unpopular move in deeply traditional St Denis. Meanwhile, a Californian producer wants to set up a wine-making business in the valley. Despite the money and jobs this would bring, many fear it would destroy their town. When a violent death follows the crop burning, it looks as though someone is prepared to do anything to stop the scheme. Bruno will have to draw on all his local knowledge to reach the truth.
'BEGUILING, EVOCATIVE, WONDERFUL ."
The Resistance Man
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. It's summer in St. Denis for chief of police Bruno Courrèges, and that means a new season of cases. This time there are three weighing on his mind. First, there’s the evidence that a veteran of the French Resistance is connected to a notorious train robbery; then, the burglary of a former British spymaster's estate; and, finally, the murder of an antiques dealer whose lover is conveniently on the lam. As Bruno investigates, it becomes clear that they are connected--however, figuring out how will take every skill he possesses. Add in juggling the complex affections of two powerful women, maneuvering village politics, and managing his irrepressible puppy, Balzac, and Bruno has his hands full once again.
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno."
The Templars' Last Secret
In this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series Chief of Police Bruno works to connect the tangled threads of past and present. He nonetheless finds time, naturellement, to enjoy the wine, food, and beauty of the Périgord region. When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near the idyllic French town of St. Denis, chief of police Bruno Courrèges suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands above: a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold. With the help of Amélie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance. And her ties to Islamic terrorists—not to mention the return of an old flame of Bruno’s, who is assigned to work with him on the case—only heightens the pressure to unravel the centuries-old mystery.
In this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series Chief of Police Bruno works to connect the tangled threads of past and present."
A Taste for Vengeance
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: When a British tourist fails to turn up for a luxurious cooking vacation in the idyllic village in the south of France that Bruno Courrèges calls home, the chief of police is quickly on the case. Monika Felder is nowhere to be found, and her husband, a retired British general, is unreachable. Not long after Bruno discovers that Monika was traveling with a mysterious Irishman with a background in intelligence, the two turn up dead. Was she running away? How much does her husband really know? Meanwhile, the star of the girls’ rugby team is pregnant, jeopardizing her chances of being named to the French national squad. Bruno’s search for the truth in both cases leads him in some unexpected directions—but as ever, he and his friends find time along the way to savor the culinary delights of the region.
Another delightful installment in the internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: When a British tourist fails to turn up for a luxurious cooking vacation in the idyllic village in the south of France that Bruno ..."
The Patriarch
Another delightful installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: Bruno Courrèges is thrilled when he receives an invitation to the lavish birthday celebration of his childhood hero, World War II flying ace Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix. But when the party ends in the death of one of Marco’s longtime friends, Gilbert, it turns into another day on the job for St. Denis's chief of police. All signs point to a tragic accident, but Bruno isn’t so sure, for there is more to the Desaix family's lives and loyalties than meets the eye. There’s Victor, the Patriarch’s son and Gilbert's sometimes rival, and Victor’s seductive wife, Madeleine, whose roving eye intrigues Bruno even more than her fierce political ambitions. Not to mention the Patriarch himself—did his postwar Soviet ties intersect too closely with Gilbert’s career in Cold War intelligence? As Bruno’s entanglement with the Desaix family becomes more complicated, his inquiries into Gilbert’s life will become a deadly threat to his own.
Not to mention the Patriarch himself—did his postwar Soviet ties intersect too closely with Gilbert’s career in Cold War intelligence?"
The Body in the Castle Well
Another installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: When a young American woman turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle, Bruno Courrèges initially assumes that she died of an overdose. But her doctor soon persuades him that things may not be so simple, setting Bruno on an investigation that will lead him from the Renaissance to the French Resistance and beyond. Claudia Muller had been studying with Monsieur de Bourdeille, a renowned art historian who became extraordinarily wealthy through the sale of paintings that may have been falsely attributed—or so Claudia suggested shortly before her death. In his younger days, Bourdeille had aided the Resistance and been arrested by a Vichy police officer whose own life story also becomes inexorably entangled with the case. Also in the mix is a young falconer who works at the Château des Milandes, the former home of fabled jazz singer Josephine Baker. Once again, it’s up to Bruno to make sure that justice is served—along with a generous helping of his signature Périgordian cuisine, of course.
Another installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno: When a young American woman turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle, Bruno Courrèges initially assumes that she died of an ..."
Bruno, Chief of Police
"Originally published in Great Britain in slightly different form by Quercus, London, in 2008"--T.p. verso.
"Originally published in Great Britain in slightly different form by Quercus, London, in 2008"--T.p. verso."
Crowded Grave
Bruno’s day has not started well: an international summit to be held in a local chateau is being threatened by Basque separatists, and animal-rights campaigners have declared a war on the beloved local delicacy, foie gras, in the form of an attack on a local duck farm. Horst Vogelstern, a famed researcher working in the archaeological treasure house that is the Vézère Valley, has made a find that promises to change our understanding of humankind’s evolution, but complications ensue when another body is unearthed at the site—one that sports a gunshot wound to the head and is definitely not ancient. Bruno senses a link between the activist groups and the unidentified body, but his investigation is hindered by further attacks on local farms and the interference of local bureaucrats. When Horst disappears under mysterious circumstances, the scope of the case widens, and tension in the town of St-Denis reaches an all-time high. The Crowded Grave is a sense-stirring portrait of the culture, camaraderie and culinary customs of French country life, accompanied by a satisfying and intoxicating mystery.
The Crowded Grave is a sense-stirring portrait of the culture, camaraderie and culinary customs of French country life, accompanied by a satisfying and intoxicating mystery."
A Birthday Lunch
When not solving mysteries in his beloved little town of St. Denis, Bruno, the chief of police, likes to cook and share his meals with local guests and dear friends. For his friend Florence’s birthday, Bruno is preparing a surprise. But, like much else in St. Denis, it’s a communal effort, and one that Bruno pulls off with a little help from the countryside and the town. He finds an ancient hand axe in the ground during his morning run with his dog Balzac—it will make a spectacular gift—picks up newspapers for wrapping by the medical center, and gathers fresh nettles from by his chicken coop and thyme from his garden for soup and garnish. It’ll be the perfect day for Bruno and his guests to celebrate their collective history. A Vintage Shorts original. An ebook short.
When not solving mysteries in his beloved little town of St. Denis, Bruno, the chief of police, likes to cook and share his meals with local guests and dear friends."
Bruno, Chief Of Police: Books 1-4
This special ebook bundle includes all four books in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series: Bruno, Chief of Police, The Dark Vineyard, Black Diamond, and The Crowded Grave. Martin Walker’s mystery series set in the idyllic South of France combines suspenseful plotting, Gallic charm, the region’s delectable gastronomy, and a hero to root for. The Bruno novels have been widely praised for balancing a charming evocation of small-town life in La France Profonde with expert plotting and a seamless incorporation of social and political tensions in modern-day France, as well as for venturing into some of the darker corners of the nation’s history. They are international bestsellers and have delighted readers all over the world. Praise for Bruno "A perfect little gem of a whodunit." —Winnipeg Free Press "Martin Walker's bucolic mysteries offer a gentle reminder to slow down and smell the grapes." —The New York Times Book Review "Gallic charm suffuses Walker's third mystery of the French countryside. . . . A savory delight." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The Bruno novels have been widely praised for balancing a charming evocation of small-town life in La France Profonde with expert plotting and a seamless incorporation of social and political tensions in modern-day France, as well as for ..."
Bruno and le Père Noel
It's the last market day before Christmas and Bruno, Chief of Police is preparing for a traditional gastronomic feast. But, never off duty for long, Bruno is called to action when he receives information that a prisoner on parole has gone missing, last seen heading for St Denis, where his ex-wife and son live. The goose, the oysters, his English girlfriend's Christmas pudding and Bruno's famous mulled wine will just have to wait... And if Martin Walker's 'Bruno' novels have inspired you to visit this beautiful part of France yourself, keep reading for the author's own guide to 'A Perfect Week in Perigord'.
And if Martin Walker's 'Bruno' novels have inspired you to visit this beautiful part of France yourself, keep reading for the author's own guide to 'A Perfect Week in Perigord'."
The Shooting at Chateau Rock
This installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno will take all of Bruno's resolve and quick thinking to untangle a mystery that will reach its deadly denouement at the château of an aging rock star. But in true Bruno fashion, at least lunchtime is never in danger. It’s summer in the Dordogne and the heirs of a modest sheep farmer learn that they have been disinherited. Their father’s estate has been sold to an insurance company in return for a policy that will place him in a five-star retirement home for the rest of his life. But the farmer dies before he can move in. Was it a natural death? Or was there foul play? Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges is soon on the case, embarking on an investigation that will lead him to several shadowy insurance companies owned by a Russian oligarch with a Cypriot passport. The arrival of the oligarch’s daughter in the Périgord only further complicates one of Bruno’s toughest cases yet.
This installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno will take all of Bruno's resolve and quick thinking to untangle a mystery that will reach its deadly denouement at the château of an aging ..."
Bruno and the Carol Singers
The fifth installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. In this exclusive eBook, St. Denis is experiencing its coldest winter in years—bringing the promise of snow and shared chocolats chauds in the village’s cafés—and Bruno is occupied with his Christmastime duties. From organizing carolers to playing Father Christmas for the local schoolchildren, Bruno has his hands full . . . at least until some funds raised for charity go missing. Then it’s up to Bruno to save the day (and perhaps manage a Christmas miracle) in this charming holiday installment of Walker’s best-selling series.
A Christmas Mystery of the French Countryside Martin Walker . ALSO BY MARTIN WALKER Fiction The Devil's Cave Bruno , Chief of Police The Dark Vineyard Black Diamond The Crowded Grave The Caves of Périgord Nonfiction The Iraq War Europe ..."
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