obsession, forensic-anthropology, forensics, forest-fires, firefighters, climate-change, espionage, procedural, France, friction, friends, friendship, communism, foodie, recipes, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, contemporary, interagency, international-crime-and-mystery, international-crimes, international-espionage, interpersonal-problems, families, family-history, basset-hounds, suspense, thriller, relationship-issues, relatives, local-gossip, local-law-enforcement, local-legends, local-news, action, rural, witty, unputdownable, unpleasant-co-worker, investigations, journalist, secrets, lies, audiobook*****

A superior officer with an obsession about a cold case he has not solved in thirty years, the opportunity to have a forensic reconstruction of the victim's face, severe fires in the countryside related to global warming, Bruno's rare relative is getting married, politics everywhere, a brief history of communism in France/Germany, and Balzac becomes a father! Another great read
Riveting! Great police work stringing out the clues and suspects. As addictive as the others I am binge-reading in this series!
Voice actor Robert Ian MacKenzie is excellent with interpretation and character definition, and superior in the rolling tones of French pronunciations. ( )

Affable Chief of Police Benoit ‘Bruno’ Courrèges returns in another charming Dordogne mystery, awash with local colour and yet more sumptuous meals.

This time, he finds himself engaged in an old case, hunting for the murderer of an unknown man whose body had been found thirty years ago near a local campsite. His colleague and friend, now head of the local Gendarmerie and starting to think about retirement, had worked on the case at the time – it was his first involvement in a murder investigation, and has been obsessed about the identity of the unknown victim throughout most of his career. While studying an anthropological display at a nearby museum, Bruno has an inspiration about a possible new approach.

Meanwhile, two members of Bruno’s circle of friends are (separately) following up rumours about the possibility that there might be agents from the former East Germany still under deep cover throughout France, and possibly now in positions of seniority within the administration.

As always, the plot is almost secondary to the marvellous descriptions of life, and particularly the food and wine, enjoyed in the Dordogne. That is not, however, to say that the story isn’t robust, and once again martin Walker pulls off an entertaining and engaging story. ( )

Well, this was a delightful find courtesy of my (basically non-reading) husband. I think I could grow quite accustomed to spending some time, if only virtually, in the Dordogne Valley with Bruno and his friends.

Bruno Courreges is the Chief of Police in the small village of St. Denis. His job seems to involve everything from escorting the nursery school children and their mothers across the street safely to liaising with the highest echelon of policing in France. Although he has so much on the go he still has time to cook gourmet meals based upon the local fare, including what comes from his own vegetable garden. Also, he never passes up the opportunity to sample some of the fine (and not so fine) regional wines. After visiting a local museum and seeing the Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal skulls that had been reconstructed as they would have looked when alive, Bruno comes up with the idea that the same technology could be used to help solve a thirty-year-old cold case that has haunted his detective friend, J-J. Although the woman who did the reconstructions is far too busy to work on the skull of a body that had been found buried near a private campground she did recommend a young student who needed to do some project for her college course. At the same time, advances in DNA processing had enabled the victim's DNA to be matched with a close relative. The relative's DNA was in the system because he was a French soldier who had been killed in Mali. It was clear from the genes they shared that the murder victim was the father of the dead soldier. The soldier had one living relative, his half-sister Sabine, who happened to be a gendarme. Sabine was not aware, until told when she was brought into the investigation, that her brother had a different father. Her mother's best friend, Tante-Do, did know and also knew who the father was. Tante-Do and Sabine's mother had spent a wild weekend in the Dordogne area just before Sabine's parents got married. They met two young men who had been working in local vineyards for the summer. The couples spent all of a weekend together much of it making love in the woods surrounding the campground where they were staying. They never saw the two men again and didn't really know much about them except that they were supposed to be college students from Strasbourg. As Bruno and J-J delve deeper into the backgrounds of the two men, the world of the Cold War era and the East German Stasi secret police is prominent. It's far too convoluteda plot to explain but the author assures us it is based upon the acts of East German spies in France. And just to make things even tenser a drought in the Dordogne has led to raging forest fires. Bruno and almost every other able-bodied person has to help in the ensuing emergency that puts people,animals, orchards, and vineyards at risk.

Bruno is a very eligible bachelor with a lovely dog and a horse. The biggest mystery to me is how the women of France have let him loose for so long. ( )

An interesting departure from the usual Bruno, Chief of Police. Very enjoyable. Quite some time spent on fires in the area. I was grateful to get this information out to the general public. Very exciting as usual. ( )

New techniques let J J reopen a long-ago case as they reconstruct a man's face from his skull. History piles on as they examine France at the time of the murder. Communists from E Germany infiltrate and sustain as French citizens. Where are they now becomes a serious search of the archives and memories of some current and past senior citizens. Bruno cooks, drinks, savors wines, and becomes a grandfather of the canine persuasion as this very good series continues nicely. ( )