Once again, I am indebted to two different friends of the bookstore who told me about Martin Walker’s mystery series featuring Chief of Police, Bruno Courreges. Walker is perhaps better known for his nonfiction work, (The Iraq War and America Reborn), but I think he is going to find a very receptive audience for his mysteries, particularly for those who enjoy a French setting.

Bruno has, what he considers, an idyllic life. He lives in a small village in the South of France where he teaches children tennis and rugby, is happily restoring a run-down farm house, knows everyone in the village by name and history and also happens to be the Chief of Police, which in this village requires very little weaponry, but quite a bit of guile to avoid the bureaucracy of modern E.U. life. Life abruptly changes when an elderly French Algerian war hero is brutally murdered. Now Bruno is faced with the violence he tried to leave behind as a soldier, is inundated with police, special investigators and politicians worried about a possible racial motive behind the crime, and motives as far-reaching as contemporary skinheads, WWII Nazis and the French Resistance.

Not only did I love the character of Bruno, I was also swept away by the descriptions of the food, wine and beautiful countryside. I also learned a lot about the role of Algeria during WWII and modern-day life in France. All-in-all, a terrific and worthwhile mystery. ~Patti