Fatal pursuit

Review by New York Times Review

HOME IS THE ONE PLACE on earth you can't fix - but don't tell Ace Atkins's straight-arrow hero, Quinn Colson. When he returned to Mississippi after serving 10 years as an Army Ranger, he found Tibbehah County infested with strip joints and meth labs, bogus preachers and vicious bikers, crooked politicians and marauding gangsters. Now, in THE INNOCENTS (Putnam, $27), the sixth book in this series, Quinn has been voted out as sheriff, but he's still trying to make things right. Some familiar good ol' boys turn up here, including Quinn's father, a burnt-out Hollywood stuntman with a delusional scheme to open a dude ranch. But although this is a novel fueled by testosterone and moonshine, three of its best characters are women. Lillie Virgil has been acting sheriff since the last person to hold that office "got himself killed." But although she's admired for her keen marksmanship and filthy vocabulary, she may have met her match when Fannie Hathcock takes over the old Booby Trap, renames it Vienna's Place and establishes a somewhat more genteel atmosphere in which to buy a lap dance. A shrewd businesswoman, Fannie uses the Golden Cherry Motel, across the street, as a dorm for the Born Losers, the "dirty, stinky and mean" biker gang that provides protection for her club. But it's 18-year-old Milly Jones who grabs your heart. Determined to tell the shameful story behind her brother's suicide, she needs someone to help tell it right. This poor innocent even drives all the way to Tupelo to attend a book signing by a "real" writer, only to come away with a quick brushoff and a Christian romance novel. To raise a nest egg, Milly signs on as a pole dancer at Vienna's Place and, drawing on her gymnastic skill as a former cheerleader, the kid is a sensation. But she's so desperate to get out of town that she grabs her money, stiffs Fannie out of the house share and heads for the highway. When Milly resurfaces - weaving down a country road while engulfed in flames - the narrative understandably gets darker, challenging Lillie and Quinn to break through the community's rigid defenses and twisted loyalties. But the deeply cynical ending only confirms Milly's observation that "people around here hate when you tell the truth." "YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN in this game." Peter Lovesey gives fair warning in ANOTHER ONE GOES TONIGHT (Soho Crime, $27.95), his latest impeccably constructed mystery featuring the unpredictable but ever-entertaining Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond of the Bath Constabulary. Diamond is on the scene of a car crash near a railroad line when he rescues a severely injured old man, thrown from what appears to be a custom-built tricycle. This peculiar person, it is later revealed, is a retired engineer and an ardent railroad buff, a member of a breakaway branch of the Bath Railway Society. Things get interesting when Diamond discovers that other elderly members of the group have recently died, leading him to suspect that he might have saved the life of a serial killer. Lest we get too focused on all the funny business involved in railroad mania, there are red herrings to sniff out and misdirections to blindly follow. For all the witty jabs Lovesey takes at English eccentricities, this is a classic whodunit. As Diamond notes, "Taken as problem solving, plotting a murder could be treated like any other engineering project, constructing a turbine or a tunnel." The same might be said of deconstructing a good murder mystery. EACH OF MARTIN WALKER'S novels set in the Dordogne highlights some feature peculiar to this beautiful pastoral region of France. Previous plots turned on the annual truffle auction in Ste. Alvère; the prehistoric limestone caves along the Vézère River; and the grape harvest in the fictional village of St. Denis, where the amiable Bruno Courrèges serves as chief of police. In FATAL PURSUIT (Knopf, $25.95), the colorful attraction is the Concours d'Élégance, a vintage car parade and sports car rally to be held in St. Denis. Through a comedy of errors, Bruno is recruited as navigator of a classic Citroën DS3 in the rally, which is both thrilling and truly élégante. The barely noticeable murder of a local historian eventually folds into the more dramatic mystery of "the most expensive car of all time," a 1936 Type 57C Bugatti - one of only four built, but gone missing somewhere in France during World War II. For the first time, Walker has created an object of desire more delectable than the festive meals Bruno always prepares for his friends. TWO BOYS GROW up poor on the side streets of a big city. One manages to climb his way out of the old neighborhood; the other stays behind to make their tough city tougher. Michael Harvey does wonders with this standard opener in BRIGHTON (Ecco/HarperCollins, $27.99), which finds him back in his native Boston. Kevin Pearce and Bobby Scales share a terrible secret from their past that Kevin is forced to confront years later, as a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, when a murder investigation takes him back home to face his old friend Bobby - and his own conscience. The story is boldly told, from so many angles and points of view that the moral center keeps shifting. Even the characters who die won't go away in this fiercely felt lament for a neighborhood and a youth that never was.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 10, 2016]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The chief subject of Walker's mysteries, the glories of the Dordogne region of southwestern France, never varies, and it never grows old, not even over the span of the long-running series. That's because Walker so vividly describes the variegated pastoral landscape, with its cliffs, woods, ancient villages, twisty roads, and prehistoric caves (the most famous being Lascaux). Yes, but Walker saves his poetry for describing food. His hero, Bruno Courrèges, chief of police in the town of St. Denis, is always scouting out local markets, meeting friends for sumptuously evoked lunches and dinners; of course, he cooks, too, and the preparation of his own locally sourced dinners for friends or lovers is detailed in the lovingly precise manner of Robert B. Parker's Spenser. Walker mixes in murder and intrigue as well, but crime operates more as a side dish. In this, the ninth Bruno, Chief of Police, novel, a vintage-car rally (filled with sensuous details of the cars and the experience of driving them) leads to Bruno's learning about how one of the most famous cars of all time, a Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic, went missing during WWII somewhere in France. He also contends with the murder of a local scholar, whose work may offer clues to the vanished Bugatti. The mystery uncovers traces of an international crime ring in St. Denis, and offers rich views of the Resistance. A feast, from scenery to food to Bugattis.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2016 Booklist

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

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Walker's engaging ninth mystery featuring police chief Bruno Courrèges (after 2015's The Patriarch) finds the residents of St. Denis, France, commemorating their relationship with their Alsatian twin town of Marckolsheim. The festivities, which include a classic car parade and a rally car race, have attracted many tourists, including two men hunting for a priceless Bugatti that vanished during WWII. Bruno is preoccupied with his role as a rally car navigator, until a local historian hired to research the Bugatti is murdered. Mediation of a family feud and surveillance of suspected money launderers compound Bruno's work load, but he still finds time to ride horses, woo attractive women, and consume copious amounts of good food and fine wine. Bruno's day-to-day business occasionally eclipses the plot, but that's hardly cause for complaint given the idyllic picture Walker paints of life in the Périgord region. History buffs, racing fans, and automobile aficionados will find plenty to love, and the mystery is intriguing even if it doesn't fully satisfy. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Felicity Bryan Associates. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

When a local scholar turns up dead at St. Denis, France's annual rally and classic car parade, Bruno, the city's chief of police, suspects foul play, especially when a family squabble is factored in, making the investigation more challenging. Then another body is found. This ninth outing (after The Patriarch) is lighter in tone but still entertaining. The descriptions of food and the Dordogne region? are enchanting. © Copyright 2016. 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.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

St. Denis chief of police Bruno Courrges (The Children Return, 2015, etc.) turns his attention from cabbages to cars. The Concours de lgance brings a bevy of classic beauties to the Prigord. Jack Crimson dusts off his Jaguar Mark 2. Horst, a German architect, helps his friend Clothilde emerge from her Porsche Speedster. Bruno's friend Annette sits at the wheel of her Jaguar S-type, her English friend George Young beside her. Sylvestre Wmy drives his Bugatti from Marckolsheim. Fabiola shows off her Renault Zoe electric car, and town councilor Alphonse drives a Kango. But none of these automotive wonders can hold a candle to the Bugatti Type 57C, known as the Atlantic. Only four of the cars were ever produced: one is owned by Ralph Lauren, one was destroyed, one is in a California museum, and the fourth was lost in World War II while being driven across France. Since the Atlantic's path would have taken it through Prigord, and arguably near St. Denis, the car aficionados' interests are piqued. At the peak of all piques are Sylvestre and George Young, and their dogged curiosity makes Bruno wonder just how far they might go to track down the car of their dreams. Bruno has other things on his mind. Young Flix, son of a local cleaning lady, is caught shoplifting, someone wings a pebble at a horseback rider, and elderly historical researcher Henri-Pierre Hugon is found dead in his study. Plus, the always-indispensible lunar almanac tells Bruno when it's time to plant, and his neighbors' daughter, Martine, provides a delightful distraction all her own. But the lost Atlantic keeps drifting through his inner landscape until murder gives its disappearance a new urgency. Walker's latest Bruno adventure has a lighter touch than earlier entries but offers as pleasing a puzzle as any. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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1 The lunar calendar said that the new moon made this a good day to plant broccoli, lettuce and cauliflower, just as the previous days of a waning crescent moon were said to be the time to weed and to start a new compost heap. As Bruno Courrèges, chief of police of the small French town of St. Denis, planted the seedlings he'd brought from his greenhouse, he wondered if this was some old wives' tale. Other gardeners he knew and trusted, prime among them the mayor of St. Denis, swore that the traditional ways of the lunar calendar worked for them, and there was no arguing with the quality of the generous crops they harvested. So when the mayor had given him a copy of the lunar almanac and advised him to try following its advice, Bruno thought he'd make the experiment. At the far side of his vegetable patch, his basset hound, Balzac, gazed at Bruno curiously, probably wondering why he was not allowed to play in this part of the garden. "There is some science behind it," the mayor had insisted. "It's like the tides of the sea. The moon's gravity draws up the moisture in the soil when it's waxing and lets it down again when it's waning. So plant your aboveground vegetables when it's a waxing moon and your belowground ones when it's waning. It works for me." The last of the seedlings planted, Bruno used his watering can to sprinkle the neat rows of fragile green shoots and then stretched to ease his back, turning his face to the early morning sun. He'd picked the last of his winter vegetables when the moon had said the time was ripe, and some of them were already in the big stockpot he kept atop his wood-­burning stove. Cooking a couple of quartered chickens with the carrots, onions and potatoes had made a plain but filling meal for his friends the previous evening. Now with some more vegetables and garlic and a pack of green lentils added, it would provide him and his dog with a hearty stew throughout the week. Back in the house, Bruno heard his guests moving around upstairs in the new bedroom he'd built under the roof. He added some logs from his woodpile to the stove, closed the damper and then reopened it a notch. It would keep the place warm all day and let the stockpot cook slowly, the way he liked it. He poured the last of the previous evening's wine into the stew and added some hot water. He wanted to clean his Land Rover and get to the tennis club early for the meeting and subsequent parade of classic cars, a new event in the calendar of St. Denis. His houseguests would get there on their own. Despite the work he had put into organizing the event, Bruno had never thought of himself as a car enthusiast. He did not read car magazines, and he seldom recognized the make of a new car until he saw its insignia. He put fuel in one end of his own vehicles and water in the other and expected them to function; they were merely tools to take people or goods from one place to another. He entrusted their repair and maintenance to experts and assumed they would be more or less efficient. He had driven many different vehicles, military and civilian. These days he mostly drove the utility police vans supplied to him by his employer, the mayor and council of St. Denis, or the aged Land Rover he had inherited from a hunting friend and for which he had developed a surprising affection. The Land Rover was not a comfortable vehicle to drive, built before the modern conveniences of adjustable seats, power steering and antilock brakes. Indeed, it was nearly twenty years older than Bruno. He had been surprised to learn this qualified it as a classic car. But it could go just about anywhere--­cross rivers, climb the steepest and most muddy slopes and negotiate the most-­rock-­strewn trails through the woods where he hunted the region's abundant game. And it had never let him down. This was more than he could say for some of the fancy cars his friends drove, which seemed to require the skills of a computer expert as much as a traditional car mechanic. In his days in the French army, Bruno had driven jeeps, trucks, motorcycles and even the occasional armored car. He had a painful memory of the deafening and bone-­shaking experience of driving an AMX-­30, France's main battle tank, on the testing grounds at Saumur and had vowed never to repeat it. Forty tons was more than Bruno felt he could handle, particularly when the instructor had closed the driver's hatch so that Bruno's vision was limited to two narrow slits and a blurry periscope. Driving held little appeal for him ever since. Bruno took little pleasure in driving fast and had been called to the scene of too many road accidents to push his limited skills. He had once been taken frighteningly fast around a course by a skilled rally driver, his friend Annette, a magistrate in Sarlat. She had skidded around bends, missed trees by inches and accelerated over the crests of hills in a way that Bruno's head repeatedly slammed against the roof of her specially equipped Peugeot. Bruno thought he had been saved from unconsciousness only by the helmet she had supplied. Such driving was not for him. Bruno's sole ambitions as a driver were to be competent and safe. This morning Bruno skipped his usual morning run so that he could wash and polish the Land Rover. He had scrubbed the mud from the wheel wells and used a touch-­up pen to cover the deeper scratches in the faded-­green paint. He had wiped clean the canvas-­covered seats and washed the windows, inside and out. He had swept out the dust and gravel from the interior. He had tidied up the rear, putting his tennis gear in one bag, his rugby boots and tracksuit in another and his all-­weather garments and hunting clothes in a third. He had washed the dog blanket that now nestled between the bags, where Balzac could rest while waiting for his master. A newly washed bowl and fresh water bottle stood ready for Balzac's refreshment. When Bruno drove, Balzac preferred to ride on the passenger seat where he could watch the road and landscape and, in the absence of a car radio, listen to Bruno sing. Other than his occasional attendance at church or on convivial evenings at the rugby club, Bruno had sufficient regard for the comfort of his fellow humans to reserve his singing for his Land Rover and his shower. As Bruno, freshly showered and changed, drove into town, Balzac seemed to appreciate his owner's version of "Que Reste-­t-­il de Nos Amours?" Bruno tried to catch the breathy, almost-­playful tones of the Charles Trenet 1943 original. For Bruno, no other version would do, although most French singers had made their own recordings, singing it too slowly or making it too sad, Bruno thought. His own mood when he thought of his past love affairs was of fond nostalgia rather than tragic loss. The memories made him grateful rather than despondent, so as Bruno pulled his unusually clean and gleaming car into the parking lot by the tennis club, he was pleased to see a familiar ancient Citroën deux-­chevaux. Pamela, its owner and the woman who had recently ended their affair, was standing nearby and admiring the baron's venerable 1958 Citroën DS, which still looked more modern than most of the vehicles on the road. The baron was leaning with one elbow on the roof of his car as he chatted with Pamela and gestured proudly at his second car, the old French military jeep that he used for hunting. It was being driven today by Sergeant Jules from the gendarmerie. Pamela waved and beckoned Bruno to join them as he let Balzac jump out of the car and scamper across to her. He waved back but went to greet his two house­guests, who had followed in their own car, and led them across the parking lot to meet his friends. It was a fine turnout for the classic-­car meeting, thought Bruno proudly, and a very international gathering. His Eng­lish friend Jack Crimson was at the wheel of his white Jaguar Mark 2, his daughter, Miranda, beside him. Horst, a German archaeologist, was dressed for the part, wearing white gloves and a flat cap as he helped Clothilde, curator of the local prehistory museum, from the seat of her Porsche Speedster. A retired Dutch architect had brought his boxy DAF Variomatic, and someone else had an elderly Saab. Lespinasse from the garage was dusting his perfectly restored Citroën traction-­avant from 1938, which was the oldest car of the gathering. To Bruno's eye the most striking vehicle was a white E-type Jaguar. From its passenger seat Annette was waving at him, a good-­looking and fair-­haired stranger at the wheel beside her. "Meet George Young, an English friend," Annette said to Bruno as he approached, her hand on the young man's arm. "He's from London, where he runs a company bringing British drivers over to take part in French rallies and races. I met him at the Rallye des Remparts in Angoulême, and I persuaded him to bring his Jaguar to St. Denis for our parade. He's going to navigate for me at the rally tomorrow." Her voice was animated, almost giddy, and she turned back with a shyly affectionate look at her companion as the two men shook hands, and then Bruno introduced his two guests from Alsace. It was about time Annette found herself a boyfriend, thought Bruno. The Englishman looked very suitable. He was about Bruno's height, slim but with powerful shoulders and a friendly smile. His French was fluent as he chatted to the couple from Alsace about his visit--­he called it a pilgrimage--­to the Bugatti collection at the Musée National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse, near their home. From the corner of his eye, Bruno saw movement in the woods behind the tennis club and recognized a sullen, skinny teenager named Félix lurking in the trees. Félix was a truant who shunned the tennis and rugby lessons Bruno offered to the other students in the town's collège. He was the youngest child of two parents now well into in their fifties. The older siblings had long since left home, and the father had been unemployed for years. His mother, from a French island in the Caribbean, was a cleaning woman at the school. She had bequeathed to her son a skin just a shade or two darker than café au lait, which meant some cruel schoolmates sneered at him as a métis, a "half-­caste." Félix had suffered a number of brushes with the law for shoplifting, petty vandalism and one case of joyriding in a stolen car. Bruno reminded himself to check on the boy's age; once he was sixteen, his next offense could mean juvenile detention. Bruno was disappointed that he'd never been able to straighten the boy out; he thought of Félix as one of his failures. "Him again," said Yveline, commandant of the small gendarmerie in St. Denis, who had suddenly appeared at Bruno's side. She was in uniform. "You know we're going to have a lot of trouble with that kid." "We already have," said Bruno. He gave Félix a stern stare, so the boy would know Bruno had his eye on him, before leading his friends to join a group congregating at a long trestle table set up in front of the club. One of the waitresses from Fauquet's café was serving croissants and pains au chocolat and dispensing coffee from two large thermoses to the gathering of drivers. Bruno had chosen this spot for the cars to assemble, away from the main road and out of sight of the crowds who were expected to line the main streets for the parade. He had almost finished his coffee when two strikingly modern cars arrived. Fabiola was at the wheel of her new Renault Zoe electric car, and behind her came Alphonse, the town's only councillor from the Green Party, in his electric Kangoo van. Alphonse had persuaded the mayor to make a nod to the environment by welcoming electric cars into St. Denis's first Concours d'Élégance. That was the title Annette had dreamed up for what Bruno thought of simply as a vintage-­car parade, one of the events marking the name day of St. Denis on October 9. Excerpted from Fatal Pursuit: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel 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.

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