![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/grave.jpg\" "\\"grave\\"")
<\/a>Bruno, chief of police in the small French village of St. Denis, has a lot on his plate.\u00a0 A corpse only 20-some years dead has been found in an archeological dig next to a 30,000-year-old set of bones, making for The Crowded Grave<\/em> of the title.\u00a0Besides that, animal activists have started protesting at a nearby foie gras <\/em>farm, the new magistrate has taken issue with Bruno\u2019s tactics, and he has been assigned security for an anti-terrorist conference nearby.\u00a0So what does Bruno have on his mind?<\/p>\nDinner, of course.\u00a0These books are well-plotted but thinly disguised paeans to life in the Perigord region of France, and Bruno is not your normal police chief.\u00a0 He is \u201c\u2026an ex-soldier who hunted and drank and who tried never to arrest anyone and cared little for the subtleties of modern law enforcement with its counseling and political correctness.\u201d\u00a0 He also sees himself as protector of the provincial traditions of his small adopted town, someone who struggles to maintain connection with the past while moving forward.<\/p>\n
Of course, what could be more important than food, wine, and romance \u2013 a meal with a former lover reassigned to the region for the anti-terrorist conference?\u00a0He has already prepared one meal for her \u2013 culinary foreplay, if you will- and now he prepares for the climactic event.\u00a0Walker lavishes 11 mouthwatering pages on the preparation and execution of the meal (who can read the phrase \u201c\u2026 crayfish atop a broth of celery and fennel, onions and carrots\u201d without licking his lips), but only one tasteful paragraph on the foregone conclusion in Bruno\u2019s boudoir.\u00a0 (Bruno fans should be drooling in anticipation by now.) The meal is just one of many repasts the reader can revel in throughout the narrative.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Walker cooks up quite a stew of a story.\u00a0He stirs into the m\u00e9lange <\/em>of main ingredients \u2013 the dead body, a kidnapped archeologist,\u00a0a bomb at the foie gras <\/em>farm \u2013bits of the past always present in the Perigord.\u00a0Bruno notes at one point in his patrolling that \u201c\u2026France is built on a heap of bones \u2026 we are the sum of all the dead that went before us.\u201d<\/p>\n Walker seasons it with a soupcon <\/em>of Spanish Basque history, a few sprinkles of local culture, a dash of romantic intrigue, then finishes it all off with a dramatic flamb\u00e9 <\/em>of violence. \u00a0Like the many wines that flow through these pages, this series improves as it ages.\u00a0 Bon appetit, mes amis.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Want a book about travel, French food and wine, romance \u2013 and, oh yes, a good police mystery? Our world-traveling reviewer, Bob Moyer, has just the story for you. By Robert Moyer THE CROWDED GRAVE. By Martin Walker. Knopf. 324 pages. $24.95. Bruno, chief of police in the small French village of St. Denis, has […]<\/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":[333,158,27,157],"class_list":["post-885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","tag-bruno","tag-martin-walker","tag-mystery","tag-perigord"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885","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=885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":888,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885\/revisions\/888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}