Bruno, Chief of Police Defeats More Evildoers

Martin Walker's new police thriller, The Templars' Last Secret, is the latest in his series about Bruno Courrèges, chief of police of the small imaginary town of St. Denis in the Périgord region of France. The plot is exciting, beginning with the mysterious death of an unknown woman at a private chateau with connections to the medieval Templars. The plot links to various aspects of the local tourist attraction, the famous prehistoric caves of Lascaux. Excitement comes from several violent confrontations with very dangerous terrorists. However, no spoilers here!

Bruno is a superhero. He's irresistible to the ladies (two of his former girlfriends play a role here, along with a new Dark Lady, though no love scenes this time); he's extremely brave (won the Croix du Guerre); he always connects the dots, no matter how obscure, to solve his case; he thinks fast and shoots straight when threatened; he can learn new things (in this book, the Dark Lady shows him the vast potential of Facebook and Twitter); he knows how to manage the higher-ups who send orders from Paris; he's a humanitarian who helps the kids and working people of his town; he loves his dog Balzac; and above all, he is a fantastic cook who avails himself of the fantastic regional produce of his region. Not to mention that he's a connoisseur of the regional wines.

A cave painting from Lascaux, much discussed in the novel.

-- Wikipedia

I'm not going to repeat what I said about this series of novels last summer when I read the 2016 book -- my post here: "Fatal Pursuit." Instead I'm going to give you a passage that shows how Bruno cooks and where he gets his materials. Sometimes I suspect the reality of the idyllic rural atmosphere of little St. Denis. It's the town every urban French person wishes to find, but not likely that it has survived into the twenty-first century.

The descriptions I picked deal with one meal that he prepared for friends. First, Bruno goes to market to buy the materials that he doesn't have on hand:

"The weekly market of St. Denis would soon be celebrating seven centuries since its foundation by royal charter, and as he gazed around the familiar stalls, Bruno wondered how different today’s wares might be from the offerings of those initial markets. Ducks and chickens, eggs and spices, fish, fruit and vegetables would have been sold just as they were today, he guessed, although there wouldn’t have been either tomatoes or potatoes in the centuries before Christopher Columbus set off to find the New World."  (p. 80).

Once at home -- after a bit more police business -- Bruno goes back and forth to the kitchen, preparing local and hand-picked ingredients and after the guests arrive, serving one incredible dish after another. The guests are continually discussing the various police matters that occupy them. Fortunately, they are also appreciative of his amazing culinary skill. The meal goes on for several pages, so I've left out quite a bit!

"Bruno took the cheese from his fridge, and from his freezer removed the stock for the fish soup, which he’d made with the discarded shells and heads of shrimp from an earlier meal. He peeled a half kilo of shallots from his garden and put them in a saucepan with a little butter. He did the same with a half kilo of button mushrooms he’d bought in the market. He cut the kilo of veal into cubes and put them into his largest saucepan, covered the meat with water and put it on to boil before peeling a medium-sized onion and pushing into it four cloves. He then jumped into the shower and changed into jeans and a sweater. He fed Balzac, put the frozen fish stock into the microwave to thaw and paused to consider. He planned fish soup, followed by blanquette de veau with rice, salad with cheese and pears poached in spiced wine for dessert. ...

"The veal was starting to boil, so he turned down the heat, skimmed off the surface fat and then dropped in a chopped carrot, a rib of celery, the onion with its cloves and one of the bouquets garnis he made every few days. ...

"He checked his watch. Usually he would simmer the meat for as much as two hours to get it really tender, but this was Oudinot’s veal, the best in the valley, from milk-fed calves raised with their mothers. The meat would be deliciously tender anyway, and his guests would be arriving within the next fifteen minutes. ...

"Finally from the freezer he took the vacuum bag with the last of the basil he’d picked last autumn. And when he saw Balzac’s ears twitch and the dog move to the door, Bruno knew his guests were about to arrive. Balzac always heard the sound of an engine coming up the road a good half minute before his master. He opened the door so that Balzac could bound out and give the arrivals his usual noisy welcome. Before he followed Balzac, Bruno added another glass of white wine to the fish soup, tasted it and smiled to himself. It was good. ...

"Once inside, the guests settled in his sitting room with glasses of champagne. Bruno excused himself and went into the kitchen to check on the food. He added some lemon juice to the fish ... . He opened a can of his own venison pâté....

"Bruno poured out the rest of the champagne, invited them to move to the table and went back to the kitchen to check the seasoning and toss some chopped parsley onto the fish soup. He opened the white wine and took it to the table, then brought in the tureen....

"He gathered up the bowls and went to the kitchen, stacking them in the sink and turning on the hot water. Then he tasted the veal and nodded; it was time to make the blanquette. He drained the sauce from the meat over a measuring cup and put the meat aside, removing the bouquet garni and the carrot and celery. He poured the sauce into a separate large saucepan and left it over a low flame. ... Slowly, making sure the flour was fully absorbed, he added four tablespoons and then began to pour in the juice from the veal, continuing to whisk to ensure it was fully blended. He turned up the heat and brought it to a simmer, still stirring until it began to thicken. Then he added the veal, ... 

"Quickly, he peeled the fat pears he had bought, put them into a saucepan and poured in red wine until they were just covered. He added two cloves, some cinnamon and some grated nutmeg. Finally, he poured in half a glass of his own vin de noix and left it simmering. ...

"'There may be one more treat in store for us all this evening,' Bruno said, bringing in the dessert, adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a splash of cognac to his poached pears." (pp. 109-117)

Update July 25: The New York Times has an article titled "The Delicious World of Bruno, Chief of Police" -- including a slide show of where author Martin Walker lives in Perigord.