The Children Return

February 2, 2015
Recent events make the themes of Walker’s thoughtful seventh novel set in France’s Périgord (after 2014’s The Resistance Man)—terrorism and prejudice—seem eerily prescient. Bruno Courrèges, the St. Denis a police chief, is sickened by the burnt, tortured corpse he discovers and later identifies as Rafiq, an undercover operative investigating extremist infiltration at a nearby mosque. Soon afterward, Bruno learns that local youth Sami Belloumi, an autistic savant, is being transported home from Afghanistan, where he has been forced by jihadists (whom he met through the mosque’s school) to engineer lethal terrorist bombs. Sami’s return puts St. Denis in the middle of a media firestorm; experts converge to determine his legal treatment even as Rafiq’s killers try to silence Sami and Bruno. More thriller than mystery, this installment lacks the warmth of the series’ more-local story lines—but Bruno still has time to savor food, wine, and his attraction to a FBI liaison. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Felicity Bryan Associates.

February 15, 2015
French police face down jihadis in Dordogne. Ever since his retirement from maintaining world order as a U.N. peacekeeper in Sarajevo, Benoit "Bruno" Courreges has served as chief of police in the sleepy rural village where he divides his time between solving routine crimes and making soup from the zucchini, peppers and cucumbers he grows in his garden. But the mutilated corpse found outside St. Denis shocks even a seasoned soldier like Bruno (The Crowded Grave, 2012, etc.). And the murder of Rafiq, an undercover cop, is only the tip of the iceberg. The terrorists who killed him were looking for information that would lead them to Sami Belloumi, an autistic savant who disappeared from a school for special needs students in Toulouse. Sami's on his way back from Afghanistan, where Taliban forces have been capitalizing on his preternatural mechanical skills. But his emaciated frame and the scars on his back suggest that his work building improvised explosive devices may not have been voluntary. With the French, British and American press howling for Sami's hide, Bruno wants to shield the gentle, confused youth and thinks he may have an ally in Pascal Deutz, the psychiatrist sent to debrief him. The U.S. State Department sends its own debriefer: Nancy Sutton, who both charms and terrifies Bruno. Into this heady mix comes Maya Halevy, a rich Israeli widow looking for the Perigord farm that sheltered her and her brother, David, during the war, for a recipe as volatile as Bruno's pot-au-feu. Former journalist Walker's seventh Bruno entry is as prescient as it is terrifying.

February 1, 2015

In his seventh outing (following The Resistance Man), Bruno takes on domestic jihadists and an international tribunal, a former lover, and an affectionate U.S. intelligence officer, all while trying to protect an autistic Muslim named Sami and taking care of his home village of St. Denis in the heart of France's Dordogne region.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
There is a tension in Walker's Chief Bruno mysteries between the idyllic village of St. Denis in the Dordogne region of France, where Bruno Courreges serves as chief of police, and the incursions of either home-grown evil or the problems of the outside world. The tension is often lightened by discourses on the local wine, loving accounts of cooking, and to-die-for descriptions of Bruno's rides on horseback through the countryside. The seventh installment is much lighter on the frivolity. A man's body is discovered in the woods where Bruno loves to ride; Bruno recognizes the cruel efficiency of the method as the mark of a special-forces assassin. Bruno also investigates some history here: the Jewish children reportedly sheltered by villagers during WWII. This last bit is interesting but seems tacked on. This is a solid mystery, with the ever-fascinating character of Bruno at the helm, but it's lacking that sense of everyday living in France that makes the series so captivating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)