The UPA Book Club has chosen the first in Martin Walker’s series of 15 mystery-and-French-culture novels to read and to discuss at our Friday, June 10 meeting. Our title is Bruno, Chief of Police: A Novel of the French Countryside, Vintage, 2010, 304 pages.
This selection is, according to Amazon’s description, “The first installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno. Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France. He’s a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that. Now Bruno must balance his beloved routines—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage, shopping at the local market, drinking wine, strolling the countryside—with a politically delicate investigation. He’s paired with a young policewoman from Paris and the two suspect anti-immigrant militants. As they learn more about the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive.”