When a local's troubling death is linked to a Russian oligarch and his multinational conglomerate, Bruno faces one of his toughest cases yet, one that brings together a French notary and a rock star—and, of course, Bergerac red and white.It's summer in the Dordogne. The heirs of a Périgordian sheep farmer learn that they have been disinherited, and their father's estate 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 never gets his life of luxury—he dies before moving in. Was it a natural death? Was there foul play? Bruno begins the investigation that leads him to several shadowy insurance companies owned by a Russian oligarch with a Cypriot passport. The companies are based in Cyprus, Malta, and Luxembourg, but Bruno finds a weak spot in France: the Russian's France-based notaire and insurance agent. As Bruno is pursuing this lead, the oligarch's...

Early on summer mornings, police chief Bruno enjoys wandering the stalls of the weekly market in the village of St. Denis as they are being loaded with wares—ducks, oysters, wooden toys, used books, exotic teas and now, even miniskirts and cellphone cases. St. Denis is changing. But when Bruno's old friend Léopold from Senegal and his young nephew Cali start selling African coffee and chocolate more cheaply than Bruno's old friend Fauquet at his café across the square—Fauquet starts to lose his clientele and a competition erupts between the vendors. As a local taxpayer, Fauquet seeks protection against unfair competition while Leopold and Cali seek the right to do business fairly and protection from the anti-immigrant café-owners in nearby towns. As the rivalry escalates, it's up to Bruno to find a way for the neighbors of St. Denis to make peace. A Vintage Shorts original. An ebook short.

An aging art scholar and a visiting student, haunting echoes of France's colonialist past, and a delicious navarin of lamb—Bruno is back, and his latest case leads him from the Renaissance to the French Resistance and beyond by way of a corpse at the bottom of a well.When Claudia, a young American, turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle in Bruno's jurisdiction, her death is assumed to be an accident related to opioid use. But her doctor persuades Bruno that things may not be so simple. Thus begins an investigation that leads Bruno to Monsieur de Bourdeille, the scholar with whom the girl had been studying, and then through that man's past. He is 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 policeman whose own life story...

A pair of murders, a romance and rivals in pursuit of a long-lost vintage car of unfathomable value—Bruno, chief of police, is busy in another mystery set in the beautiful Dordogne At the annual fête in St. Denis, Bruno's biggest worry is surviving as a last-minute replacement navigator in a car rally race. The contest and a classic-car parade are new to the festivities and draw a spate of outsiders with deep pockets, big-city egos and, in the case of a young Englishman, an intriguing story. It's the tale of a Bugatti Type 57C, lost somewhere in France during World War II. Among the most beautiful cars ever made, one of only four of its kind—Ralph Lauren owns one—it is worth millions and drives its pursuers mad with greed. In the midst of the festivities, a local scholar turns up dead and Bruno suspects unnatural causes. After a second death, there is mounting evidence that the events in St. Denis are linked to international crime. To...

SUMMARY: In this riveting sequel to Martin Walker's internationally acclaimed novel "Bruno, Chief of Police, " some of France's great pleasures--wine, passion and intrigue--converge in a dark chain of events that threaten the peaceful village of Saint-Denis. Benoit (Bruno) Courreges--devoted friend, "cuisinier extraordinaire" and the town's "only" municipal policeman--rushes to the scene when a research station for genetically modified crops is burned down outside Saint-Denis. Bruno immediately suspects a group of fervent environmentalists who live nearby, but the fire is only the first in a string of mysteries centering on the region's fertile soil. Then a bevy of winemakers descends on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers. Romances blossom. Hearts are broken. Some of the sensual pleasures of the town--a dinner of a truffle omelette and grilled "becasses, " a community grape-crushing--provide an opportunity for both warm friendship and bitter hostilities to form. The town's rivals--Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine; Jacqueline, a flirtatious, newly arrived" "Quebecoise; and Fernando, the heir to an American wine fortune--act increasingly erratically. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past. A splendid mystery--and a delectable serving of the pleasures of France. "From the Hardcover edition." SUMMARY: Just before dawn one late-summer morning, Bruno is pulled from sleep by the wail of the town siren atop the Mairie, summoning the volunteer firemen of St Denis. A large barn and the fields surrounding it are ablaze. When Bruno arrives at the scene, the smell of petrol leaves no doubt - it was arson. Soon after, a wine mogul from California visits the town with plans to buy up half the valley to create an industrial-scale wine-producing operation. Such a business would bring a healthy injection of dollars to St Denis, plus the creation of at least fifty jobs. It appears that someone is determined to stop the scheme and is prepared to go to any lengths - including murder - to do so. Bruno must use all his skills, tact and local knowledge to negotiate a minefield in order to reach the truth.

A beloved village, a complicated family, a suspicious death--it's the latest adventure in the Dordogne for police chief Bruno.When Bruno is invited to the lavish birthday celebration of World War II flying ace and national icon Marco "The Patriarch" Desaix, it's the fulfillment of a boyhood dream. But when the party ends in the death of Gilbert, a family friend, it's another day on the job for the chef de police. All signs point to a tragic accident, but Bruno isn't so sure. There is more to the Desaix family's lives and loyalties than meets the eye. There is Victor, the Patriarch's son, Gilbert's old comrade-in-arms and sometime rival; his seductive wife, Madeleine, whose roving eye intrigues Bruno even more than her fierce political ambitions; Chantal, the granddaughter who stands to inherit from Gilbert's mysterious trust funds; and the Patriarch himself, whose postwar Soviet ties may have intersected all too closely with Gilbert's career in Cold War...

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 friend. 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.

The Dordogne's favorite chief of police is back in a heart-poundingly suspenseful case that finds his small town innocently targeted by a global terrorism network.When an agent tracking domestic jihadists is found murdered near St. Denis, it's troubling enough for Bruno's beloved village. But when Sami--an autistic Muslim youth raised locally but thought lost to Islamic extremism in Afghanistan--comes home, things get far more complicated: abducted and exploited for his technological genius, Sami has used that same talent to gather a trove of al-Qaeda intel. Now the same jihadists who killed the agent aim to silence Sami, and as an international tribunal descends to process Sami's case, Bruno must scramble to track the terrorists down before they exact their own justice. Meanwhile, Bruno's juggling the affections of a sometime lover and the mixed, alluring signals of one of the high-ranking U.S. intelligence officers on Sami's case. Add to that a member of the tribunal...

Bruno, the beloved chief of police of the idyllic French town of St. Denis in the Dordogne, is back! This time a mysterious death brings ancient secrets to light, and it's up to our hero—and favorite gourmand—to connect the tangled threads of past and present When a woman's body is found at the foot of a cliff near St. Denis, Bruno suspects a connection to the great ruined Château de Commarque, a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold that stands on the cliff above, and which, along with the labyrinth of prehistoric caves beneath it, continues to draw the interest of scholars. With the help of Amélie, a young Haitian newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance, the discovery of which could have dramatic repercussions throughout the Middle East—not to mention in St. Denis. And the woman's ties to Islamic terrorists can only heighten the pressure on...