Publisher's Weekly Review
Policing in Chief Bruno CourrEges's sun-dappled patch of Perigord involves protecting local fromages from E.U. hygiene inspectors, orchestrating village parades and enjoying the obligatory leisurely lunch-that is, until the brutal murder of an elderly Algerian immigrant instantly jolts Walker's second novel (after The Caves of Perigord) from provincial cozy to timely whodunit. As a high-powered team of investigators, including a criminally attractive female inspector, invade sleepy St. Denis to forestall any anti-Arab violence, the amiable Bruno must begin regarding his neighbors-or should we say potential suspects-in a rather different light. Without sacrificing a soupAon of the novel's smalltown charm or its characters' endearing quirkiness, Walker deftly drives his plot toward a dark place where old sins breed fresh heartbreak. Walker, a foreign affairs journalist, is also the author of such nonfiction titles as The Iraq War and America Reborn. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The good lifeand it's very good indeedin the rural commune of St. Denis is shattered by a particularly vicious murder. Until Hamid Mustafa al-Bakr was slaughtered, the biggest professional problem Benot Courr'ges, the police chief universally known as Bruno, had was keeping meddlesome food inspectors from closing the Prigord markets. Once sports-bar owner Karim al-Bakr's grandfather, who fought for France in the Algerian war, has been discovered bound and eviscerated, a swastika carved into his chest, Bruno seems to have stepped into a daunting new weight class. Though the decades-long antipathy between shoemaker Philippe Bachelot and bicycle-shop owner Jean-Pierre Courrailler shows that petty rivalries can blossom even in idyllic St. Denis, everyone knows everyoneand Bruno knows everyonemuch too well to admit any possibility of a hate crime. Nor is Bruno convinced when the obligatory outsiders brought in to solve the case train their eyes on Richard Gelletreau, the doctor's teenaged son, whose only offenses concern drugs, porn and kinky sex, and on Karim himself. Why did the killer steal Hamid's Croix de Guerre and a photograph of the football team he played for half a century before? In order to restore his paradise to its original bliss, Bruno will have to plumb the depths of the past and unearth secrets no one wants revealed. Walker (The Caves of Prigord, 2002, etc.) sets a charming table with little mystery and less suspense, but the civilized approach to detection will likely appeal to fans of Roderic Jeffries's Inspector Alvarez. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.