Off to the Dordogne with Martin Walker
An Enemy In The Village and Dordogne with Martin Walker
Time to head to the Dordogne today with the marvellous Martin Walker and Bruno, the police chief..
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Bruno, a local policeman who spends his spare time hunting, cooking and teaching the village children to play tennis and rugby, is a respected figure in the Perigord region of France. So, he is surprised to learn that he has a range of enemies. These range from a local lawyer, a bent gendarme to some city-dwelling Green politicians . All people who cannot abide Bruno’s belief that hunters are the real guardians of the rural environment.
(c) martin walker
One wintry morning before Christmas, Bruno finds an expensive car parked at dawn in a country layby. Trouble is there’s a dead woman inside and an empty box of pills. So, at first sight, it looks very much like a suicide.
However, the dead woman, Monique, had left three letters in the car: to her lawyer; to her woman partner in a very successful chateau-rentals business; and to her own much younger husband.
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Le Bugue
The cool tone of this final letter is striking, and so is his virtual exclusion from her will. In delivering the letter to her attractive (and half-English) business partner, Laura, Bruno is delighted to find that Laura, like him, has a basset hound, but hers is the most beautiful lady-basset he had ever seen. Bruno’s dog, Balzac, seems as impressed as his master.
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Sarlat
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
But first Bruno has to do the inventory of Monique’s car. He finds that she kept immaculate records of her running costs, including fuel. But although she had recently filled the tank, it now seems close to empty, with no record of new fuel being bought.
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Bruno decides to check on the young gendarme who had to take Monique’s car to the police pound. He finds in the garage attached to the gendarme’s lodgings some second-hand jerry cans filled with fuel, and his suspicions are alerted. He finds that the young gendarme, whose uncle is a top general at Gendarme HQ outside Paris, is trying to use his uncle’s influence to fend off allegations of sexual harassment . And then the plans for a new, enlarged Gendarme HQ in St Denis suddenly seem to be blocked, which would be a real financial blow for the town..
Tremolat
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Everything seems to be going wrong around Bruno at once, and then Monique’s husband, Dominic, starts making allegations about Bruno’s connections with the women whom Dominic blames for being left with nothing in Monique’s will. One is Laura, the business partner; the second is Monique’s lawyer, Rebecca Weil; and the third is Bruno’s old friend Annette, a magistrate in Sarlat.
Sarlat
Then, as a well-known local figure, Bruno has been invited for a long and amicable interview with the local radio station, and suddenly finds himself the target of an ambush. Almost every telephone line into the station has been blocked by militant Greens, and among those firing their hostile questions are children asking how could he eat the chickens he had raised, or their unborn babies in the form of eggs? Or little baby deer? Or baby boar. The interview had become a political trap.
Map of locations in An Enemy in the Village
Then his well-meaning attempts to save the marriage of a colleague turn sour and Bruno then finds himself being tracked by some sinister private eye, just as his hopes of true love seem to be reviving. And he is invited to the dinner of a lifetime at his favourite Michelin-starred restaurant. What could possibly go wrong?
