The Patriarch A Bruno, chief of police novel

Review by New York Times Review

THERE ARE AUTHORS who keep writing the same book, over and over. Michael Koryta is not one of those authors. An inventive storyteller who's also a skilled stylist, he's constantly experimenting, which explains why his private eye novel last words (Little, Brown, $26) doesn't read like one. Mark Novak conducts investigative work for a team of Florida defense lawyers who take on pro bono cases for clients on death row. But he's been unraveling for more than a year, ever since his wife, who worked for the same firm, was murdered. With his job hanging by a thread, Mark is given the mercy assignment of investigating a cold case in Garrison, Ind., noteworthy because Ridley Barnes, the man who has asked for help, was never charged but has been condemned by the whole town. Ridley is a fanatical caver, the most experienced in this part of Indiana, poised on miles of caves and caverns where there are "countless collisions between worlds above and worlds below" - as was the case when 17-year-old Sarah Martin lost her way in Trapdoor Caverns and Ridley, who found her body and carried her out, became the chief suspect in her murder. Deep caves can do strange things to your head, and Ridley already had peculiar notions about this one, which he believes to be a living being, with a soul and capable of speaking to him. For all he knows, he may very well have killed Sarah. In the process of discovering the secrets of this spooky town and its menacing inhabitants, Mark begins to conduct himself more like a professional - until someone knocks him out and tosses him into the cave. As Ridley well understands ("The darkness is within me"), a descent into the underground can either expand or destroy your mind. But even on a literal level, Koryta's descriptions of that unknown realm beneath the one we know - with places like the Chapel Room and Maiden Creek and Greenglass River - possess an unearthly beauty. You almost begin to believe, as Ridley does, that it's all one big cave down there, with endless interconnected rooms stretching into infinity. LIFE IN THE Dordogne region of France looks positively idyllic in Martin Walker's enticing novels featuring Bruno Courrèges, the chief of police of St. Denis. The village may be fictional, but the delights of this pastoral district - from the chateaus along the rivers to the prehistoric cave paintings to the food on the tables - are very real and essential to the narrative. THE PATRIARCH (Knopf, $24.95) alludes to the political history of the area, opening at the 90th-birthday celebration of the title character, Colonel Jean-Marc Desaix, an ace fighter pilot and hero of World War II. Although he's been a guest at the party, Bruno is called back the next day in his civic capacity when another distinguished veteran dies, supposedly of alcohol poisoning. For something that presents itself as a polite country house mystery, the story takes many surprisingly sharp turns, leading back both to the deprivations of those painful war years and the losses no one wants to revisit. Given the complications of this absorbing case, you've got to hand it to Bruno for having the stamina to take long horseback rides, attend wine tastings, whip up elaborate meals for friends and participate in his hunting club's annual wild-boar roast. CHRISTOBEL KENT'S Florentine mysteries are best read for their intimate views of the Oltrarno, the residential district on the south side of the Arno, THE KILLING ROOM (Pegasus Crime, $25.95) takes US to locations like the Via Santo Spirito, where the rich still live in their grand palaces, representing "centuries of iron will, taste, ruthlessness and money," and the Via Maffia, where they once stabled their horses. But the characters also inhabit humble areas like San Frediano, a "district of fishwives and thieves and artisans" as well as the office of Sandro Cellini, the down-to-earth investigator in this series. Cellini is the new security chief of the lavishly renovated Palazzo San Giorgio, a luxury apartment house plagued by petty crimes, cruel pranks and, inevitably, murder. As often happens in Kent's novels, Cellini's lively family and friends tend to hijack the plot, but because the San Giorgio residents are mostly pallid specimens of the fashionable international set, the personal dramas of the locals are a welcome intrusion. KARIN FOSSUM'S MINIMALIST police procedurals featuring her Norwegian detective, Inspector Konrad Sejer, have a stealthy way of mutating into richer, if also darker, psychological studies of criminals and their victims. Take THE DROWNED BOY (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24), a sad story (even more chilling in Kari Dickson's austere translation) about a 16-month-old toddler who wanders through an open kitchen door and drowns in a pond. An accident, one assumes, and so tragic for the young parents. But while Sejer is a principled detective with "a strong and burning desire for truth and justice," he also values human instinct. And a colleague's reservations about the drowning of little Tommy, who had Down syndrome, make Sejer take a closer look at 19-year-old Carmen Zita and her 20-year-old husband, Nicolai Brandt. In the end, the novel isn't about willful murder or even accidental death, but the psychological aftershocks for the living.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 9, 2015]

---

Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The latest in the Bruno, Chief of Police, series (Bruno being the nickname for Benoît Courrèges, chief of police of the small town of St. Denis in the Périgord region of France, also known as the Dordogne) is a country-house murder set in an elaborate French château. Walker treats readers to lavishly detailed accounts of meals served in farmhouse, restaurant, and at village fêtes, giving us cookbook-worthy accounts of ingredients, preparation, and wine pairings. Walker also leads us through this region, home of historic caves, the Lascaux cave paintings (with a fascinating detour into the contemporary Lascaux Museum), and wonderfully variegated landscapes (some of which are seen from the back of Bruno's horse). The mystery may seem almost incidental to meals and scenery but is, nonetheless, a corker. Bruno is invited to the ninetieth birthday celebration for his childhood hero, WWII flying ace Marco the Patriarch Desaix. In true country-house-murder fashion, one of the guests, Gilbert Clamartin, the Patriarch's old comrade-in-arms, is found dead after the party. It seems as if he died from alcohol poisoning, but was it mere overindulgence or actual poisoning? Bruno's investigation leads back to the Patriarch's and Gilbert's Cold War-espionage past and through the intricacies of the Patriarch's family. The ending is absolutely amazing.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

---

Review by Library Journal Review

Benoît Courrège, known as Bruno, heads the police force in St. Denis, in France's Dordogne region. In his eighth adventure (after The Children Return), Bruno is invited to a spectacular birthday party for his hero, Marco "The Patriarch" Desaix. In Bruno's mind, the 90-year-old Desaix represents the heroes of World War II-those who left Vichy France to fight against the Nazis. When a friend dies unexpectedly after the celebration, Bruno is not on board with the medical examiner's quick diagnosis of aspiration and even less amenable to the immediate cremation. As he investigates, Bruno discovers the victim was probably not drunk at the party and had many secrets. So who stands to benefit from his death? The Patriarch's family oversees a vineyard and is attempting to create a new type of wine. Rivalries and jealousies abound. Bruno also has to deal with a Green Party activist who protects the deer on her property against the hunters in the area. Plus his personal life isn't going well. VERDICT With meals to prepare and wines to sample, life in the Dordogne is delightful-until the next murder. This enjoyable Gallic series will appeal to fans of Peter Mayle's Provencal-flavored "Caper" books (The Marseille Caper; The Vintage Caper). Read-alike authors also include Fred Vargas and Julia Spencer-Fleming. [See Prepub Alert, 2/23/15.] © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

---

Walker / THE PATRIARCH 1 Benoît Courrèges, chief of police of the small French town of St. Denis and known to everyone as Bruno, had been looking forward to this day so much that he'd never considered the possibility that it might end in tragedy. The prospect of meeting his boyhood hero, of being invited into his home and shaking the hand of one of France's most illustrious sons, had awed him. And Bruno was not easily awed. Bruno had followed the career of the Patriarch since as a boy he had first read of his exploits in a much-­thumbed copy of Paris Match in a dentist's waiting room. He had devoured the article and dreamed of starting a scrapbook on his newfound hero but had no money for the magazines and newspapers he would require. The young Bruno made do instead with libraries, first at his church orphanage and later, when he'd been taken into the stormy, child-­filled household of his aunt, at the public library in Bergerac. The images had remained in his head: his hero silhouetted against camouflaged fighter planes in the snow, wearing shorts and a heavy sidearm in some desert, drinking toasts in one ornate palace or grand salon after another. His favorite was the one that showed the Patriarch as pilot, his helmet just removed and his hair tousled, waving from his cockpit to a cheering crowd of mechanics and airmen after he'd become the first Frenchman to break the sound barrier. Bruno could not help but smile at his own excitement. His boyhood was long behind him, and he knew grown men should not feel like this. Bruno had worn a military uniform himself, knew the chaos of orders and counterorders and all the messy friction of war. He knew, as only a veteran can, that the public image of the Patriarch must conceal flaws, fiascoes and botched operations. He should have grown out of this hero worship, or at least appeased it now that he had been able to call up old newsreels and TV interviews on his computer. But some stubborn, glowing core remained of that boyhood devotion he had felt for a man he thought of as France's last hero. As he waited in the receiving line to shake his hero's hand, Bruno knew that he'd never attended an event so lavish nor so exclusive. The château was not large, just three floors and four sets of windows on each side of the imposing double doors of the entrance. But its proportions were perfect, and it had been lovingly restored. While the adjoining tower with its stubby battlements was medieval, the château embodied the discreet elegance of the eighteenth century. The string quartet on the balcony overlooking the formal garden was playing the "Fall" movement from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a piece that perfectly suited the surroundings. Bruno could imagine the Fragonard paintings of perfectly posed maidens that should grace its rooms; he knew they had been painted at around the same time as some pre-­Revolution nobleman had transformed his ancestors' fortress into a comfortable home. Below the balcony, at least a hundred people were sipping champagne as they chatted and strolled in the garden. The sound of women's laughter made a perfect backdrop to the music. On the broad terrace to which Bruno was restricted by the wheelchair he steered, at least as many guests again were mingling, taking glasses from the trays offered by the waiters dressed in air-force uniforms. He heard snatches of conversations in English, German, Russian and Arabic and picked out at least a dozen different national uniforms. He recognized politicians from Paris, Toulouse and Bordeaux, mostly conservatives, but with a scattering of Socialist mayors and ministers from the government in Paris. Whenever Bruno spotted them gathering in their usual partisan clumps, they always seemed to defer to a stunningly attractive blond woman whom Bruno had just met, the Patriarch's daughter-­in-­law, Madeleine, who was acting as hostess. She had given Bruno only a cool smile of welcome while shaking his hand perfunctorily in a way that moved him on to her husband, next in the receiving line. Beyond the formal garden of the château, the fields to the right sloped gently away to the Dordogne River and the grazing Charolais cattle upon them looking as if they had been carefully posed in place. To the left, between two ridges that were covered in trees turning gold and red, one of the lazy curves of the Vézère River glinted in the autumnal sun. Even the weather, Bruno thought, would not dare to spoil the ninetieth birthday of such a distinguished son of France. "This must be one of the finest views in the country," the Red Countess said from her wheelchair. "Our own view is pretty good, but that church spire on one side of the river and the ruined castle on the other give this one something that is almost perfection. Marco bought it for a song, you know. I was with him when he first saw this place and decided to buy it. I think it helped that my own château was close by." She paused, smiling. "Marco was one of my happier affairs. It lasted longer than most." "Where did you meet him?" asked Marie-­Françoise, the countess's American-­born heiress. Just out of her teens, she was looking fresh and enchanting in a simple dress of heavy blue silk that matched her eyes. Her French, once halting but improved by private coaching and by her time at the university of Bordeaux, was now fluent. "I met him in Moscow, where he was a star. It was the Kremlin reception after Stalin's funeral, and Marco looked magnificent in full-­dress uniform. Everybody knew him, of course. Our ambassador was put out that Marco was given precedence over him. Khrushchev came up to embrace him. Apparently they'd met somewhere on the Ukrainian front after the Battle of Stalingrad." She looked up at her great-­granddaughter and gave a gleeful smile that made her look younger than her years. "I'll never forget those frosty glances from the other women present when Marco came up to give me his arm. Mon Dieu, he was a handsome beast. He still is, in his way." Bruno followed her gaze to the double doors leading into the château where the man known across France as the Patriarch was still receiving his guests. He stood erect in his beautifully cut suit of navy blue, the red of his tie matching the discreet silk in his lapel that marked him as one of the Légion d'Honneur. His back was as straight as a ruler, and his thick white hair fell in curls onto his collar. His jaw was still as firm as his handshake, and his sharp brown eyes missed nothing. They had looked curiously at Bruno as he'd first appeared, pushing the wheelchair. But once Bruno was introduced by the Red Countess as the local policeman who had saved her life, the Patriarch's eyes had crinkled into warm appreciation. "That is the magic of this woman," the old man had said in the voice of a much-­younger man, and he bent to kiss her hand. "She always finds a knight-­errant when she needs one." Colonel Jean-­Marc Desaix, the Patriarch, had been honored as a war hero in two countries, with the Grand Cross of the Légion d'Honneur and the gold star and red ribbon of a Hero of the Soviet Union. The first had been presented by his friend Charles de Gaulle and the second by Stalin himself at a glittering ceremony in the Kremlin. Like most French boys, Bruno knew that the Normandie-­Niemen squadron of French pilots flying Soviet-­built Yak fighters had shot down more enemy aircraft than any other French unit. It had been the second-­highest-­scoring squadron in all the Russian air force, shooting down 273 enemy planes. Twenty-­two of these had been downed by Marco, then a dashing and handsome young man whose bold good looks were featured constantly in the Soviet newsreels and newspapers. As people heard of his exploits over the BBC, Marco became a hero at a time when France had sore need of such warriors. Marco had qualified as a fighter pilot in the first days of May 1940, just as the Second French Cavalry Division was trotting through the wooded trails of the Ardennes to repel what they thought was a German reconnaissance force. What they encountered was the Seventh Panzer Division, led by General Erwin Rommel, whose tanks brushed the French cavalry aside and launched an assault that would take them to the English Channel in less than two weeks. Marco saw no action in France. The day after getting his wings, he was posted to the French colony of Syria, flying one of the underpowered Morane-­Saulnier fighters that had proved so inferior to the German Messerschmitts in the battle for France. In 1941, when the British invaded and occupied Syria to prevent the Luftwaffe from using its air bases, Marco was one of more than five thousand French servicemen who volunteered to join de Gaulle. It was while Marco was retraining on British Spitfires that de Gaulle persuaded Stalin to accept a squadron of French pilots to serve on the eastern front, where the German panzers were closing in on the Volga River and on Stalingrad. Marco traded in his desert shorts for winter clothing and joined the squadron of French volunteers on the long train journey north through Persia and the Caucasus. As the defenders of Stalingrad held out, Marco and his colleagues were retraining on Yakovlev fighters. And just after the besieged and frozen remnants of the German army under Field Marshal von Paulus surrendered, the Normandie squadron was declared operational. Bruno had read it all. As a boy, he'd thrilled to the exotic Syria, tried to imagine the long train journey from desert heat to Russian cold, and to the present day he remembered that the French fighters shot down their first enemy, a Focke-­Wulf fighter, on the fifth of April 1943. By the end of the summer, they had shot down seventy more, and only six of the pilots were still alive. But they had won more than just their dogfights. The Nazi field marshal Wilhelm Keitel had ordered that any captured French pilot should be shot out of hand, rebels and traitors to their Vichy-­run homeland, and their families in France should be arrested and dispatched to concentration camps. Bruno had vowed to become a pilot, like his hero, until an overworked teacher in his overcrowded school told him brusquely that his poor scores in math and physics ruled out any prospect of being accepted by the French air force. As the next best thing, before his seventeenth birthday Bruno volunteered to join the French army. Marco Desaix had returned to France in 1945, leading the flight of forty Yak fighters that Stalin had decided the Normandie-­Niemen pilots could fly home to join the reborn French air force. Then in 1948, with discreet official backing, Marco volunteered to fly for the infant state of Israel. He found himself flying a Messerschmitt fighter donated by the Czech government and became an ace all over again. Back in France afterward, he joined Dassault Aviation as a test pilot and became the first French pilot to break the sound barrier. Marco then helped Dassault sell its Mystère and Mirage jet fighters to become the core of the new Israeli air force and launched his next career as a businessman, becoming a director of Dassault and later of Air France and Airbus. Finally, in tribute to a long and patriotic career, he had been elected to the Senate. It was an epic life that Bruno knew by heart. Bruno felt he would be attending the party of the year in Périgord. He suspected he'd not been invited on his own account but as the escort to the Red Countess, as a man who could be relied on to manage a wheelchair and its fragile passenger. Excerpted from The Patriarch by Martin Walker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

---