A Murder in Springtime: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel - Hardcover

Walker, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 13: 9798217207961

Verlag: Knopf Publishing Group, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

In this latest installment of the Bruno, Chief of Police series, a newcomer to St. Denis is killed in the home of one of Bruno's best friends--for once, Bruno feels as though he is too close to the case to properly investigate, until it becomes clear that he's the only person who can solve the crime

When Bruno gets a frantic phone call from Pamela, he's afraid that something has happened to his beloved horse he keeps at her riding school. But her reason for calling is entirely unexpected: Pamela's new lodger, whom Bruno recently met over a sumptuous dinner with excellent wine, has been murdered. Bruno knows that Pamela isn't capable of killing anyone, but then who's the culprit? And what's the motive? The dead woman had only just moved to town from the Cote D'Azur to take a job at the local retirement home--she had no enemies in the village, and no friends, either.

As Bruno wrestles with these complications, the force realizes that Bruno can't be impartial when Pamela is involved, and assigns it instead to their rising star rookie, Fabien. Bruno is happy for Fabien to take the lead. After all, Bruno's been distracted--by his foundering relationship, by a documentary crew determined to transform sleepy St Denis into a tourist hotspot, by a group of opinionated small businesses suddenly organizing a logistically complicated night market. He can't seem to catch a break.

But after Fabien realizes that the victim is someone from his past, Bruno has to step back in to help. As the high summer heat arrives in the Dordogne, the village has never felt more crowded, and the clock is ticking: will Bruno and Fabien be able to catch a killer?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

After a long career working in international journalism and for think
tanks, MARTIN WALKER now gardens, cooks, explores vineyards, writes,
travels, and has never been busier. He divides his time
between Washington D.C. and the Dordogne.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

Bruno Courrèges, chief of police of the Vézère Valley in the département of France officially named the Dordogne but which the locals stubbornly continue to call the Périgord, was engaged in one of his favorite pursuits. He was in the kitchen of his house on a Saturday evening in winter, cooking, with a glass of wine at his elbow. This was not unusual, since he loved to feast with his friends, but on this particular evening he was cooking for two, which was less common. And he was doing so with a touch of romance in his heart, and a sense of occasion that had ensured that the carpets had been vacuumed, the sheets and towels changed and the windows scrubbed until they sparkled.

His wine had been freshly poured from a bottle chilling on the steps outside the kitchen door, a locally grown Chardonnay from Château les Brandeaux. A bottle of Château Mondazur from the Pécharmant had been opened and awaited decanting. He had cooked a new batch of his own dog biscuits, not just for his basset hound, Balzac, but to be shared with an elegant young female of the same species who was also expected for dinner. She was named after the defiantly liberated novelist George Sand, who had shocked nineteenth-­century France by wearing trousers and smoking in public while conducting flamboyant affairs with Chopin, de Musset and Prosper Merimée, among others. It had been Bruno’s recognition of the dog’s name, and his appreciation of her looks, style and pedigree, that had alerted him to the special attractions of George Sand’s owner, Laura Segret, who was to be his guest that evening.

They had met in unhappy circumstances, connected by the suicide of Laura’s friend and business partner Monique Duhamel. Bruno had found the body, in her own car, parked near a spot of Monique’s happy childhood memories, and had brought to Laura a farewell letter addressed to her from her friend. The legal complications surrounding Monique’s death had brought Bruno and Laura repeatedly together, and mutual admiration for each other’s dogs soon turned into mutual attraction between their owners.

Cooking for a lover was special, Bruno thought, an act of love in itself. There was the planning of the setting; should lovers sit face-­to-­face? But the magic of touch would be much easier if one sat at the head of the table and the other alongside. It would also facilitate one of the special pleasures of lovers dining together, to offer choice forkfuls to the beloved. And then there was the choosing of the menu—­nothing too heavy—­and then of the wines, to be enjoyed in moderation.

Bruno had decided to present as a first course a little smoked salmon. It was to be accompanied by two thin slices of toasted whole wheat bread, generously smeared with avocado and a touch of black pepper. He had already prepared the dessert, a light syllabub of lemon juice, double cream and two wineglasses of Rosette, the sweet but light white wine that was unique to the Bergerac. Bruno had experimented with the dessert wine of the region, Monbazillac, but found it tended to dominate. These two dishes had been already prepared and were cooling in the fridge.

For the main course, he had decided on duck legs, picked up the previous day from his friends at the Lac Noir farm, which sold so many breasts to restaurants for magrets that they always had plenty of legs to spare. He swapped four legs and four of the tender aiguillettes in exchange for a truffle he and Balzac had found. He recalled cooking aiguillettes with a sauce Montmorency, of sour cherries with orange juice, sweet cherries and kirsch, but that had been back in summer when cherries were ripe, so he had decided against them. When he had a sudden mental image of himself and Laura each with a duck leg in hand, chewing happily together like some modern version of his favorite king, Henri IV, with his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées, his choice was confirmed.

Bruno had chopped four cloves of garlic together with a handful of dried rosemary leaves and rubbed the mixture into the flesh and under the skin of four fat duck legs before laying them flat in a roasting pan, dusting them with five-­spice powder and letting them marinate for an hour while he brought in sufficient wood to keep the stove going through the night.

Then he set the oven and put the roasting pan with the duck legs in for an hour and carried on with his cleaning. When the hour had passed, he poured out the cupful of fat that had been sweated from the legs and added a quarter liter of his homemade chicken stock and a glass of red wine, returned the pan to the oven and lowered the heat for another thirty minutes.

Bruno checked his watch and saw it was almost eight—­Laura was running late. He took out his phone, but she hadn’t texted him. After another thirty minutes had passed, he checked on the duck, and there was still a little stock not yet evaporated, so he lowered the heat further and gave it another twenty minutes. By this time he was getting nervous. Given it was Saturday, Laura should have left the office hours ago.

Should he wait for her arrival and then serve the first course at once, or forget the first course and let her sit down and catch her breath so they could enjoy a drink together? He decided to do the latter and began peeling the potatoes, setting them to parboil before moving on to the garlic and mushrooms. At nine, there was still no word from Laura. A call to her mobile went straight to voicemail; he hoped that meant she was driving. He would only need ten or fifteen minutes to slice the half-­boiled potatoes and put them with the mushrooms, garlic and some parsley in a frying pan. He would also have to heat the remaining wine and some black-­currant jelly and blend them into a gentle simmer, stirring the mixture constantly until it was ready to pour over the duck legs for their final twenty minutes in the oven.

At nine-­fifteen he called the desk at the gendarmerie to ask if there was any trouble on the roads from Périgueux or Bergerac and was assured that all was well. Bruno now pondered his cooking options. He decided to stop everything and wait another half hour, knowing that he could then have a hot meal on the table at ten, which Laura would find welcome after an evidently busy and perhaps difficult evening.

Bruno was aware that the transition of her company after Monique’s death had not been going as planned. Laura had wanted to move the headquarters from the market town of Sarlat, whose massive tourism made movement almost impossible throughout the summer, to be closer to Bergerac and its airport. Many of their clients arrived by private plane or by flights from London, Berlin or Amsterdam. She had assumed that the remaining clientele, who had long complained of the difficulties of reaching Sarlat, would be happy with the change, too. But although she was by far the longest-­serving member of the company’s directors, she did not carry Monique’s authority.

It was an unusual business that Monique had invented and slowly built with Laura’s help, selling a package deal to clients who liked the idea of owning a small French château but couldn’t justify the expense. Monique had realized that if the château was rented out by the week year-­round, and thus constantly inhabited, the price of insurance would plummet, which, along with the rental income, would make the château easily affordable. They now had about thirty such châteaus on their books, with owners who spent July, August and Christmas in their château, which for the rest of the year were occupied by vacationers, companies holding...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Knopf Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 13: 9798217207961
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Knopf; https://knopfdoubleday.com; ; 3 Queen Caroline Street Hammersmith; London; W6 9PE; Vereinigtes Königreich
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar