espionage, procedural, alcohol-issues, nonagenarian, suspense, suspicion, thriller, law-enforcement, lawyers, inheritance, historic-buildings, historical-figures, historical-places-events, historical-research, history-and-culture, entitled-attitude, witty, foodie, France, audiobook, secrets, lies, rural, small-town, smoke-and-mirrors, relationship-issues, relationships, relatives, investigations, coercion, cooperation, coping, hero-worship, unpleasant-co-worker, unputdownable, crime-fiction, greed, ex-military*****

It begins with a birthday party for a national hero of the air war in the 1940s. The next morning a good friend of the man is dead and things begin to get murkier and murkier. There are lots of side plots and even more foodie descriptions along with complex history lessons and disappointments.
Another unputdownable and inexplicable tale centered around a highly intelligent man who is not interested in fame nor climbing the ladder of police hierarchy.
Voice actor Robert Ian MacKenzie is excellent with interpretation and character definition, and superior in the rolling tones of French pronunciations. ( )

Once again martin Walker has offered an excellent addition to his series of novels featuring Bruno Courrèges, the chief of Police in the small Dordogne town of St Denis. Walker has an enticing ability to combine very sound and clever plots with a cast of wonderfully drawn and entirely plausible characters, throwing in a heady dose of gastroporn.

As with a few of its predecessors, present day crimes are found to reflect actions from deep in the past. The book opens with the great and the good of St Denis attending a party to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of a legendary figure from the Resistance during the Second World War, famed throughout the whole of France and known to everyone as ‘The Patriarch’. Bruno is there, accompanying one of the elder citizens of the area known as ‘The Red Countess’ who had known The Patriarch well in their youth. Another attendee is Gilbert Clanmartin, a former test pilot for the French Air Force and close friend of one of The Patriarch’s sons. Gilbert is known to have fallen prey to alcoholism, and after he appears to be drunk at the party, he is hustled away by members of The Patriarch’s household to avoid any potential embarrassment. The following morning he is found dead.

Because of the eminence of The Patriarch, Bruno senses that he is under pressure to fall in with the official acceptance of the death as being from natural causes, and the sad consequence of a sustained imprudent lifestyle. Bruno is not immediately convinced, and there are some minor inconsistencies that prey on his mind.

As always, Martin Walker builds up the suspense admirably, and the gradually unfurling background story is carefully managed. The details from French history, including all the sensitivities that arise from any consideration of France’s experiences during the Second World War, and the bitterness spawned from recollections of the Vichy administration, are present throughout, and leave Bruno contending with an even more sensitive minefield of suppressed emotion than usual.

Again as always, I am now eagerly awaiting the next book in the sequence. ( )

I continue to love the setting and ambience of these books but felt that the solution to this mystery was pretty obvious. ( )

Honoring a 90 yr old hero from WW2 uncovers many secrets. Mix in current politics, inheritances with unknown heirs. some Russian connections and Bruno has many mysteries to resolve. Another very good entry in this always-interesting series. When all else fails; there are intriguing wines and recipes to ponder. ( )

St. Denis town policeman Bruno Courrèges is thrilled with an opportunity to meet his childhood hero, a World War II pilot known as “The Patriarch”. The Red Countess has asked him to be her escort for The Patriarch’s party, probably because he’ll look good while handling her wheelchair. When one of the guests is found dead the next morning, Bruno is called in to take part in a cursory investigation. A doctor quickly rules the death as due to natural causes, but Bruno has a kernel of doubt that keeps growing as the story progresses. Meanwhile, an eccentric local with too many deer on her property finds herself in trouble after one of her deer causes a tragic accident. Per usual for the series, cases that seem completely unrelated share common actors.

I’ve come to enjoy this series as a pleasant diversion from day-to-day life, with its idyllic setting and Bruno’s close-knit circle of friends. I try to overlook most of the flaws, but I found it hard to swallow that, after more than a decade as the town policeman, Bruno had not met any of The Patriarch’s family previously. There was a point in the book when I was searching for something, anything, to throw at Bruno. Despite his suspicion of The Patriarch’s daughter-in-law, Madeleine, he didn’t put up any resistance to her seduction, even though it was obvious she was playing him. And Pamela voiced what all readers have been thinking when she observed that, although he says he wants a wife and children, he is attracted to women who don’t want that.

Readers new to the series should be aware that this book contains lengthy spoilers for earlier books in the series. The spoilers and Bruno’s constantly evolving love life are reasons to start this series from the beginning and read it in order. ( )