The Crowded Grave

It's such a pleasure to be back in the French countryside with Police Chief Bruno expounding on the culinary delights of the region. Life is not all fine wine and gourmet meals for Bruno. In this outing, he has to deal with Basque seperatists and animal welfare advocates. But he is up for it and also has time for some romantic liaisons.

An archeological dig has started near St. Denis and there are a number of students staying in the town campground. They are from all over Europe but have formed bonds not just based on archaeology. Katja, a Dutch girl, and Teddy, from Wales, have started sharing a tent. When Teddy discovers a more recent corpse than the Neolithic remains the group is looking for, Bruno is called in. The male corpse show more appears to have been there for around twenty years and his hands were tied behind his back before being shot in the head. So, this is more an execution than a simple murder. In addition to this crime, Bruno has to sort out who is targeting pate de foie gras producers and help set up security for a meeting between French and Spanish politicians. The latter task means he will be interacting with his former lover, Isabella, who is now with the French Foreign Ministry. Since Bruno has had a pretty steady relationship with the English woman, Pamela, he has mixed feelings about this. Bruno pretty quickly discovers that it is Katja who is protesting the production of pate and he works out a compromise between the affected farmers and the protesters. A far more difficult task occurs when some dynamite is stolen from a local quarry and it appears that Basque terrorists are targeting the French/Spanish conference. There were some Basques in the area after the Spanish Civil War but few people are left now. However, when Bruno and Isabella explore further they find people with some connection. And could that mysterious corpse have been a Basque executed by the Spanish police during the dirty war in the 1980s? As the conference comes closer and they are no closer to finding the terrorists, tensions mount. Some explosives have been found but not the terrorists themselves. Nevertheless, Bruno and Isabella manage to have a quiet dinner at Bruno's home with just his dog, Gigi. The next morning all hell breaks loose at the conference site. Sadly, Gigi is killed in the altercation but the terrorists are caught.

Poor Bruno. Not only has he lost his faithful companion, Gigi, but Isabella is going back to Paris and Pamela has been called to Scotland to look after her mother. I guess I'll just have to read/listen to the next installment to see how he copes. show less

The Crowded Grave -Walker
Audio performance by Robert Ian Mackenzie
4 stars

Trigger alert - the plot of this book includes the protests and vandalism of animal rights activists. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted foie gras, but I’d probably pass it up in the interests of humane treatment. I’m definitely and vehemently opposed to the violent death of adorable, faithful, basset hounds. How could they? Just sayin’. The animal rights activists are hardly the most dangerous criminals in this book. There’s some considerable mistreatment of humans before Bruno & Co. unravel all of the dangerous threads.

I enjoy the way the books in this series combine 21st century crimes with the traces and scars of France's rich history. This book show more uses an archeological dig to go back as far as Cro-Magnon man, fascinating. And, although I knew a bit about the Basque separatist movement, I knew little of the violence and terrorism attached to it. I like a book that sends me down rabbit holes of internet research. show less

First Line: For once, the chef de police of the small French town of St. Denis was carrying a gun.

It's spring in St. Denis, and although Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges would like to spend it taking morning walks with his Basset hound Gigi, spending even more time with his lady love Pamela, and eating and drinking with his many friends, it's not meant to be.

An archaeological team is in the area looking for Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal remains. Instead the team finds a skeleton with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head. Naturally it's up to Bruno to solve the case, but he also becomes involved with a summit being planned between France and Spain. If those two things weren't enough to keep him occupied, animal rights activists are show more attacking local foie gras producers, and a brand-new (vegan) magistrate is eager to make a strong impression.

When the professor in charge of the archaeological dig goes missing, Bruno begins to suspect that the past and the present are entwined in a very dangerous way... a way that will take him deep into Europe's dark history of terrorism and counterterrorism.

As with all the other Bruno Chief of Police books, Walker brings the Perigord region of southwestern France to life. With these books, you are not only gifted with an intriguing mystery and wonderful characters, the food, the drink, and the history of the region is skillfully woven in to create a complete tapestry. Solving mysteries with Bruno is armchair travel detecting at its very best.

In this fourth book, Walker uses the background of the Basque freedom fighters and the Spanish Civil War to add a heightened level of suspense and danger to the plot. For comic relief, we have the blundering new magistrate who learns just how talented the villagers of St. Denis are when it comes to letting an official know she's overstepped her bounds.

Bruno's love life also continues to be a concern. He has no trouble finding strong vibrant women to fall in love with, it's finding the one who wants to marry and have children that's his problem-- and if there's one character in crime fiction who's perfect for marriage and children, it's Bruno.

I will warn you that there is a scene in the last fifteen pages that could be very distressing, and I know that it had to be very difficult for Walker to write. However, the scene is not graphic, it's not gratuitous violence, and it's perfectly in keeping with the plot. If, as I am, you're a fan of these books, you'll be saying goodbye to a friend.

But life goes on, and I wouldn't miss the next installment of Bruno's story for the world. show less

Near St. Denis, archaeologists digging in remains from thousands of years ago unearth a body just decades old. It's just as well that murder is outside the scope of Bruno Courrèges's duties as St. Denis's municipal policeman. Once again, Bruno has been seconded by a ministry agency, this time to help with security preparations for a summit between French and Spanish ministers regarding a Basque terrorist group. Bruno does need to find time to investigate vandalism targeted at some of St. Denis's small geese farms that produce the regional specialty, foie gras. He'll be hindered in this by the town's new magistrate, who is known to sympathize with environmental causes. Bruno's work with the ministry will once again bring his ex-lover, show more Isabelle, back into his life, just at the time that his current lover, Pamela, is called home to Scotland.

Bruno's colleagues and neighbors seem like old friends now, and I think I would recognize many of them if I ran into them in the streets of St. Denis. Although I enjoyed spending time in St. Denis, I was annoyed by some of the weaknesses in this book. Most of us have to juggle several responsibilities in real life, so Bruno's multiple cases aren't unusual in that respect. However, it strains credulity that all of them would turn out to be related. Also, I'm beginning to tire of Bruno's love life. Bruno and Isabelle parted because her career took her to Paris, while Bruno loves his rural life. But since Isabelle's job sends her back to St. Denis and Bruno every few weeks, it seems like maybe they could make their relationship work. show less

An archaeologist's discovery of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal era burials combined with a modern era skeleton made for a very interesting mystery. Character development is very strong in Walker's novels. The evocative descriptions of French cooking and the countryside created a wonderful story in which to lose one's self. The plot twists were good reveals with subtle 'tells' to tease the reader.

This is another excellent entry in the Bruno Chief of Police series, and this series is fast becoming one of my very favourites. I am now waiting for someone to get the marvelous idea to make a television series from Martin Walker's wonderful books. I somehow missed this particular book in my reading through the list, so I read it just now, after I had already read the next one in the series. I therefore knew some of the stuff that was going to happen, but that did not spoil the book at all for me. This book had a real international flavour to it with the prospect of a summit session in sleepy little St. Denis. Bruno is called upon to help the secret service protect the safety of some high-level French and Spanish ministers. As in show more previous books, Walker exposes us to some key historical events. In this case, the so-called Dirty War between the sitting Spanish government and some left-wing Basque anachists in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Bruno, with his knowledge of his fellow St. Denis' citizens finds himself drawn in and in some grave personal danger trying to maintain the peace between two warring factions. Just because the fighting has mostly stopped in this civil war, it doesn't mean that hatchets are buried and grievances are settled. This is one of the best books I've read so far in this excellent series. Hightly recommended. show less

This is the 4th book in the Bruno Chief of Police series and the 4th one I have read. I'd say this is on par with the others. All the elements I've enjoyed in the prior books are here again with new things going on, and we get a little history lesson on the French in the process, as usual. Walker gives us a familiar cast of characters with some new ones. I'll be spoilery and say that an old favorite dies at the end of the book which did not make me happy.

I DO want to keep reading this series! I'm eager to see how things develop in the next entry in the series. There were a number of overlapping plots in this story with an important archaeology discovery involving Neanderthals and early man, attacks by greens on local fois gras farms and show more facilities, a new magistrate who is quite at odds with Bruno and the town and a big meeting between French and Spanish ministers about to take place. As always events of the past echo forward in time. Oh, one can learn new things to cook as well.

This novel is about 100 pages longer than the other Bruno books. show less