{"id":151,"date":"2011-01-30T15:56:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T22:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=151"},"modified":"2011-01-31T11:57:43","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T18:57:43","slug":"off-to-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=151","title":{"rendered":"Off to France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knowing Bob Moyer and how much he travels, I have a prediction: If Martin Walker\u2019s mystery series has made Bob want to visit the Perigord region of France, Bob will be visiting the Perigord region of France. One day, I\u2019ll be hard at work in Stokes County, N.C., and my phone will ring. When I answer, I will hear Bob saying something like, \u201cI\u2019m in a caf\u00e9 in Sarlat, eating foie gras<\/em> and truffles and \u2026.\u201d Yes, he tortures me that way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Robert Moyer<\/p>\n

THE DARK VINEYARD. By Martin Walker. Alfred A. Knopf. 320 pages. $23.95.<\/p>\n

With this series, Martin Walker has done for the Perigord region of France what Peter Mayle did for Provence \u2014 make us want to go there.\u00a0 The first two books are love letters to the region, thinly (but expertly) disguised as provincial police procedurals based in the small French town of St. Denis.<\/p>\n

As in many other villages, the times have caught up to this pocket of charm; the fishmonger\u2019s shop is now an insurance agency, and one of the two groceries now services computers.\u00a0 \u201cIt was no longer the St. Denis Bruno had first come to, a decade ago, when the small towns of rural France still retained the shops and texture he remembered from his boyhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruno, Chief of Police (the first book’s title), is actually the entire police force.\u00a0 It\u2019s more than a job for him, however.\u00a0 In his eyes, \u201c\u2026 a great part of the law\u2019s duty was to uphold the grand traditions of France and of St. Denis,\u201d and Bruno takes on that responsibility.\u00a0 There is great pleasure in\u00a0watching him foil federal investigators searching for illegal foie gras <\/em>at the local farmer\u2019s market, or deploy members of the town rugby team to defuse violence at a demonstration against genetically modified crops near town.\u00a0 The clandestine operation was discovered only after an arsonist burned the fields and blew up the barn.<\/p>\n

Matters are complicated when an American wine magnate announces plans to buy up land and vineyards in the region for a major winery \u2014 if there are no complications arising from \u201cterrorist\u201d activities.\u00a0 Everyone wants the case solved; everyone descends on St. Denis to make sure it is \u2014 the national police, the Ministry of Agriculture and even a terrorist task force.<\/p>\n

Bruno is challenged to avert violence, both from unknown perpetrators and the known ones like the wine magnate.\u00a0 Further damage is done when two beloved citizens turn up dead, and the magnate turns out to be a prime suspect.\u00a0 The fabric of his beloved town\u2019s life may be rent asunder unless Bruno can come up with a solution.<\/p>\n

On his way to resolution, Bruno stops frequently to appreciate the scenery:\u00a0 \u201cThe golden stone of the old bridge and the local buildings glowed warmly in the mid-morning light.\u00a0 The clock on the Mairie <\/em>pointed to ten a.m.\u00a0and the bells of the church in the Rue de Paris began to strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

His investigative skills, coupled with his intuitive understanding of his neighbors, lead him through the attractions of this challenged community to a discovery of both the murderer and the means to maintain the way of life he loves.<\/p>\n

Walker has written a book that, like the local wine, is \u201ctrue to its terroir\u201d and definitely to the taste of Francophiles, oenophiles, and many of us who are neither.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowing Bob Moyer and how much he travels, I have a prediction: If Martin Walker\u2019s mystery series has made Bob want to visit the Perigord region of France, Bob will be visiting the Perigord region of France. One day, I\u2019ll be hard at work in Stokes County, N.C., and my phone will ring. When I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}