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BRUNO'S PERIGORD

Our small flat for the week, up narrow Rue Presidial, a block off the central Place de Liberte' , is two levels with a wooden corkscrew staircase and narrow stone balcony overlooking the street. An enormous limestone fireplace dominates the main level of seating, dining and open kitchen areas, but disappointingly, the ownership does not allow wood fires for guests. That corkscrew staircase will prove a nemesis, as one of us will slip, fall, and break a toe, which will be many months in the healing.

Les Eyzies occupies a grand setting above the Vezere and below huge cliffs bedecked with live oak and juniper. It is home to the National Museum of Prehistory, housed in a spectacular modern building hunkering under the brow of the enormous rock outcrop, and we take an hour for a quick visit. Just outside of Les Eyzies is the Grottes de Font de Gaume, which contains a couple hundred amazing pre-historic rock paintings of bison, mammoth, horses and deer—considered to be the finest example of cave paintings in France outside of Lascaux. Note that access is very limited, and advance reservations are necessary.

Further downstream the charming village of Limeuil presides over the confluence of the Vezere with the Dordogne, which can be best viewed from the Jardins Panoramique at the top of the village—a sort of a low key botanic garden—with the big view, and worthy of an hour's wander. Though closed to us in mid-October, Le Chai, beside the river, is said to be one of the world’s great pizza houses serving varieties never dreamed of, with an amazing running and flying waiter.

Back in Sarlat we plan for dinner. Many restaurants in town are by now closed for the season. Those still open are largely tourist oriented, with a depressing sameness of menu—foie mi-cuit, magret de canard, confit duck leg, gizzard salad, cassoulet. The Restaurant Hotel Dieu, however, has a broader menu, and we are delighted with langoustine ravioli, small, perfectly fresh St Jacques scallops on a celery-root risotto, and slow, low cooked pork shoulder. The last bottle of their allocation of 25 per year of 2008 Chateau Corbiac proves to be a delightful smoky, fruit filled Pecharment—one of Bruno's favorite red wines—and perfect accompaniment.

The next day we head out for another sightseeing circuit of Bruno's Perigord, heading south again back to the river and across at Vitrac to arrive at Domme. One of Les Plus Beaux Village perched over the Dordogne, Domme is one of the prettier Bastide towns—originally built as new market towns that were also fortresses, with big squares for the market, defensible walls, and a sturdy church to act as bastion. After winding through narrow lanes, we find parking near the Belvedere de la Barre, a great vantage point and the start of the Promenade des Falaises - a short walk high up above the River Dordogne with really splendid views of the valley, and both Castlenaud and Beynac.  The main square, Place de la Halle, spiders out with downward lanes, which feature varied architecture from half-timber buildings, to golden stone buildings with steep slate roofs and small turrets.

From Domme we take the D53 windy back road to Belves, another bastide town sited on a rocky outcrop high over the River Nauze with a wide view of the surrounding countryside. There is a preserved 15th C covered market hall, and the watchtower Guet.  Arriving just before time for Sunday lunch, without reservation, we luckily find a table at the Hotel Belvedere, a former coaching inn, and the dining room is soon packed. The lone waiter is stretched, but manages to get us a simple French Sunday lunch of country pate, goat cheese salad and duck confit. 

Back in Sarlat, our larder has the two legs of duck confit to crisp up, green salad, a plate of those cheeses which had been ripening to pungency out on our tiny terrace, and a bottle of the delicious Chateau de Tiregand, Bruno's absolute favorite, bought at the excellent wine merchant Julien de Savignac, which is portrayed in the Bruno novels as Hubert de Montignac. A half bottle of the local version of Sauternes, Montbazillac paired with a small walnut tart for dessert will send us soundly to sleep after our last meal before departing westward to St. Emilion.

Last update: Feb 26, 2024 @ 9:04 pm

Bucolic French Countryside with “Bruno, Chief of Police”

Nestled within the pages of Martin Walker’s literary creation, “Bruno, Chief of Police” also called The Dordogne Mysteries is a captivating journey that transports readers to the idyllic French countryside of Dordogne. The novel not only weaves a compelling mystery but also paints a vivid portrait of a charming village in the countryside of Southwest France and its charismatic protagonist, Bruno Courrèges.

Meet Bruno Courrèges:

Bruno, a former soldier turned village police chief, is at the heart of this enchanting tale. As readers delve into the narrative, they discover a character with a deep love for his community, a passion for local cuisine, and a keen sense of justice. Bruno’s unique blend of wit, intelligence, and compassion makes him an endearing figure who stands out in the world of crime fiction.

The Allure of Saint-Denis:

Set in the fictional village of Saint-Denis in the Périgord region (also called the Dordogne region) the novel beautifully captures the essence of French rural life. From bustling markets filled with fresh produce to the fragrant kitchens where Bruno concocts delicious meals, Walker’s descriptive prose brings the village to life. The carefully crafted setting adds a layer of authenticity to the narrative, making readers feel like they’ve stepped into a quaint French hamlet.

Following the Clues:

While the charm of the French countryside forms the backdrop, “ Bruno, Chief of Police ” is, at its core, a mystery novel. A murder in Saint-Denis sets the stage for Bruno to use his investigative skills to unravel a complex web of secrets. The plot is both engaging and thought-provoking, keeping readers on the edge of their seats as they follow Bruno’s pursuit of justice. With a new book every year since 2008, this series of mysteries will have you hooked. Martin Walker ’s latest book “A Grave in the Woods” is set to come out on August 20th, 2024. Get a copy of “ Bruno Chief of Police ” here on Amazon .

Bringing the Flavors of Périgord to Your Table:

One of the delightful aspects of the book is Bruno’s passion for cooking. As the chief of police, he not only solves crimes but also whips up delectable dishes using local ingredients. The inclusion of Bruno’s culinary adventures adds a unique and mouthwatering dimension to the narrative, appealing to both mystery and food enthusiasts. Fans of Martin Walker’s bestselling novel series will be delighted by the recent release of “ Bruno’s Cookbook: Recipes and Traditions from a French Country Kitchen ”. (published November 2023) This new book offers an inside look at the culinary traditions and customs of Périgord, the region of France where Walker’s stories are set. Bruno’s Cookbook includes both classic regional dishes and personal recipes from Walker and his wife Julia Watson, who share their passion for Périgordian cuisine. Along with the recipes, the book also contains charming anecdotes and historical background of the novel’s setting.

Get a copy of the Bruno’s Cookbook here on Amazon .

“Bruno, Chief of Police” offers readers a literary escape to the picturesque region of Dordogne, where mysteries unfold against the backdrop of cobblestone streets and charming bistros. Martin Walker’s storytelling skill and his creation of Bruno Courrèges make this internationally acclaimed novel a must-read for those who appreciate a perfect blend of mystery, culture, and gastronomy.

Read next: 6 reasons to visit Dordogne

Want to visit Dordogne? Check out our small group tour options!

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Bruno, Chief of Police

by Martin Walker

read by Robert Ian MacKenzie

Part 1 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Dark Vineyard

read by Robert Ian McKenzie

Part 2 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

Black Diamond

Part 3 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Crowded Grave

Part 4 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Devil's Cave

Part 5 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

Bruno and the Carol Singers

Part 5.5 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Resistance Man

Part 6 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Children Return

Part 7 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Patriarch

Part 8 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

Fatal Pursuit

Part 9 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Templars' Last Secret

Part 10 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

A Taste for Vengeance

Part 11 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Body in the Castle Well

Part 12 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Shooting at Chateau Rock

Part 13 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

The Coldest Case

Part 14 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

To Kill a Troubadour

Part 15 of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

Bruno's Challenge

And Other Stories of the French Countryside

Part of the Bruno, Chief of Police series

Showing 1 to 17 of 17 results

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Bruno, Chief of Police

TRIP LIT: GREAT BOOKS, GREAT JOURNEYS

Book of the Month: Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker

Ever since I lived and worked in Paris the summer after graduating from college, I have wanted to visit the Dordogne region in southwest France . A colleague of mine that Parisian summer hailed from Dordogne and used to spin glowing tales of his native region, full of ancient history, exquisite landscapes, and hearty cuisine.

At last, thanks to Martin Walker's new book, Bruno, Chief of Police, I have fulfilled that long-ago wish. The Dordogne is the setting for Walker's winning mystery, and while Bruno is the central character in the book, the region plays a critical role.

A longtime reporter, editor, and international affairs columnist for the Guardian and United Press International, Walker lovingly evokes the fictional town of St. Denis where his story is set. This is a village of lush green oak and walnut trees and meadows, golden stone buildings, red tiled rooftops, and wrought-iron railings hung with washing, where no building is less than 200 years old. It's a place where secretaries and street sweepers take their morning croissants and coffee at the same zinc bar every day, limestone cliff caves cradle prehistoric wall-paintings, and the chief of police is as renowned for the vin de noix green walnut liqueur he devotedly concocts as for his crime-solving abilities.

This seemingly idyllic setting's placid surface obscures, as in much of France, dark historic currents and contemporary conflicts. These begin to emerge when a war hero from Algeria is brutally murdered in an apparently racist attack. As Walker's protagonist slowly begins to unravel the truth behind the murder, new facets of Dordogne emerge, from enmities that date back to World War II.

Walker weaves these threads into a flowing Peter Mayle-meets-Alexander McCall Smith narrative that illuminates the unresolved undercurrents and alluring rites and riches of rural France. In the end, Bruno proves to be not simply a perspicacious detective, but an engaging guide to the delights of Dordogne.

New-Book Roundup American Perspectives

In The Missing: A Novel, by Tim Gautreaux, the floorwalker in New Orleans's biggest department store goes in search of a missing child who disappears during his watch. The search takes him on a steamboat down the Mississippi and into some dark corners of the South post-World War I—and eventually to redemption. In Honolulu, Alan Brennert tells the story of Jin, a "picture bride" from Korea who comes to Oahu in 1914. When her farm-laborer husband turns out to be abusive, she manages to escape to Honolulu and builds a new life set against the backdrop of a changing Hawaii through the 1920s and the Depression. In J. California Cooper's latest novel, Life is Short but Wide, 91-year-old narrator Hattie B. Brown introduces us to the African-American Strong family of Wideland, Oklahoma, through several generations spanning the 1900s. Trials and triumphs mark their years as the small town itself evolves. In Lafcadio Hearn: American Writings, editor Christopher Benfey gathers a selection of work by the offbeat and restless journalist (1850-1904) who may be best known for his writings on New Orleans and Japan .

Reading Matchmaker If You Go All Out For St. Patrick's Day . . .

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. . . pick up At the Edge of Ireland: Seasons on the Beara Peninsula, by David Yeadon. The book follows Yeadon's travels in this lesser known part of southwest Ireland , searching out faith healers, ceili concerts, and his own Irish heritage. Bonus: The book is accompanied by Yeadon's own illustrations, from a portrait of a local cheesemaker to landscapes and pub scenes.

One Last Thing A Venetian Journey

Bringing a contemporary city to life in words is an extraordinary enough challenge. But bringing a mid-19th-century city to life is infinitely more challenging. Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Jason Goodwin overcomes the challenge with vigor and grace in The Bellini Card, his third in a series of historical mysteries featuring the eunuch investigator Yashim, who serves the Ottoman court in 19th-century Istanbul . In this new book Yashim journeys to Venice at the behest of the new sultan to search for a legendary portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, painted by Gentile Bellini. From its fast-paced dialogue to its interlacing political and social intrigues to its atmospheric depictions of Venetian life, The Bellini Card presents a riveting and revealing journey in time and space.

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Politics and Prose Bookstore  202-364-1919   Hours and Locations   

The French Périgord of Bruno, Chief of Police With Writer Martin Walker

June 4 – 11, 2025

If you’re a fan of Martin Walker’s Bruno, Chief of Police mysteries set in France, you know that Bruno is only fictional. But his region, Périgord Nord in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, is quite real, as are the foods and wines and markets and castles and characters that Bruno encounters in his adventures. 

As it happens, writer Martin Walker lives just outside of the town of Le Bugue, France, suspiciously similar to Bruno’s St. Denis. 

Join Politics & Prose and Wild Blue Yonder Trips on an exploration of this unique part of France, well known for its food specialties (truffles, walnuts, foie gras) and wines (Bruno loves wine!). 

A highlight of the trip will be spending time with Martin Walker. We’ll spend one whole day in “St. Denis,” tasting wines at Bruno’s favorite wine shop, and then going on to Martin’s house, where we’ll enjoy a leisurely lunch while Martin pours us some of his favorite wines and regales us with stories about the region. 

We’ll begin our stay in Bordeaux, a world-renowned center for wine and gastronomy. Its 18th century buildings of warm golden stone border the broad river Garonne. The city itself is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was a historic trading center in the 1700s for wine, coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, indigo and – sadly – enslaved peoples from Africa.

Then we’ll move on to the medieval town of Sarlat-la-Canéda, with its beautiful yellow sandstone buildings housing restaurants and shops. Small and extremely walkable, Sarlat has more historic monuments than any other town in France. 

For more details, click here: Martin Walker Trip Information .  

Here There and Everywhere

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• About Intlxpatr

Bordeaux/Dordogne Trip – We Owe it All to Martin Walker and Bruno, Chief of Police

Several years ago, I ordered a book recommended by Amazon. I do that from time to time, and I will tell you honestly, some of them are real stinkers.

This book, Bruno, Chief of Police , by Martin Walker, was delightful. So delightful I started looking for more of the series, some of which I was able to find used. So delightful, I shared the Bruno, Chief of Police with my husband, and he, too, was hooked.

If there is a genre I like, it is detective novels set in foreign locations, dealing with crimes that have to do with social issues current in the locale. The first I can remember is the Eliot Pattison series about Inspector Shan, a Chinese detective who falls on the wrong side of Chinese political correctness and ends up in a Tibetan jail, where he begins a series long association with Tibetan monks and the threat to Tibetan civilization that the Chinese pose. It is eye-opening reading.

The next series I discovered were the Barbara Nadel series set in Turkey with Inspector Cetin Ikhmen. Then the fabulous and prolific Donna Leon and Commisario Guido Brunette, set in Venice.

And actually, I don’t read all this books in sequence. I watch for books by these authors, and read them when they come out, not unlike my addiction to James Lee Burke and Dave Robicheaux, set in New Iberia, Louisiana and Montana.

That was a very long introduction to the idea that it makes travel in foreign lands much more user-friendly to have read books that put you on the ground, seeing what the people who live there might see. When we went to Venice, we went off the beaten track to eat at a restaurant that Commissario Brunetti recommends to a touring couple who witnessed a crime and made a report to him. It was a great adventure just finding this restaurant, Rossa Rosa ( “Guido Brunetti Sent Us” ) and it had delicious local food, no tourists. In Venice. Imagine. Now, too, when we read the newest Brunetti novel, or watch the German production of the Brunetti series, we feel a closer connection with Venice, a familiarity, because we have a “friend” on the inside. Or so we feel.

Bruno Correze, the Chief of Police in the fictional French village of St. Denise, along the Vezere river close to where it links with the Dordogne, loves his small town. In the very first volume, we meet his friends, we visit his home, we are with him when he prepares meals and entertains his friends (he uses a lot of duck fat) and we get to visit the markets and cafes with him. Every book, like the best of this genre, introduces us to at least one issue, social and/or criminal, past or present, which is manifesting itself as a problem in the Dordogne. The actual crime may or may not be the point of the novel, and the solutions are often very French.

We have devoured this series. We felt like we had been there. So we decided we needed to go there.

We visited the Dordogne – it seems like a short time ago – the last time, 35 years ago, when our son, now grown, was around 9. We made a special effort to make this a trip which was relevant to him, too. We visited Castelnaud, and spent hours with the trebuchets and mangonels, old weapons once the ne-plus-ultra of fighting off the enemy. We visited the old caves with early paintings, when they were still open to visitors.

We love France, we love traveling in France and we have never had a negative experience in France. While I once spoke French fluently – we lived in French speaking Tunisia – but language skills get rusty when they don’t get exercised. Oh, really, any excuse will do. Martin Walker’s books made us hungry, hungry for French foods and hungry just to be in France.

We booked a cruise out of Bordeaux, eight days of cruising on the Gironde, Dordogne and other rivers, visiting villages older than our entire nation, learning about major appellations, eating some fine food and drinking some very fine wine.

And then we picked up a rental car in Bordeaux and headed to the Dordogne. I’m going to tell you all about it, but first I want to share Martin Walker’s books with you. He, and Bruno, have a wonderful website where he tells you all his favorite places. As we read the Bruno books, we also take notes – which wine he chose to serve with the duck course, where he and his friends gathered for the wedding feast, etc. It was like having a friend who says “Oh, I am desolate I won’t be there, but here are all the places you need to go, restaurants you will like and oh, be sure to try this wine!” Hotel and restaurant recommendations are on the website under “Bruno’s Perigord”

Martin Walker’s Bruno, Chief of Police website

Here are the Bruno, Chief of Police books, in order, from a resource called How to Read Me, which puts the books in order. http://www.howtoread.me/bruno-chief-of-police-books-in-order/

1 Bruno, Chief of Police – Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that. Now, Bruno is paired with a young policewoman from Paris and the two suspect anti-immigrant militants. As they learn more about the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive.

2 The Dark Vineyard – When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers, the idyllic town finds itself the center of an intense drama. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.

3 Black Diamond – Something dangerous is afoot in St. Denis. In the space of a few weeks, the normally sleepy village sees attacks on Vietnamese vendors, arson at a local Asian restaurant, subpar truffles from China smuggled into outgoing shipments at a nearby market—all of it threatening the Dordogne’s truffle trade and all of it spelling trouble for Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police.

4 The Crowded Grave – It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi, and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team searching for Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it’s up to Bruno to solve the case.

5 The Devil’s Cave – It’s spring in St. Denis. The village choir is preparing for its Easter concert, the wildflowers are blooming, and among the lazy whorls of the river a dead woman is found floating in a boat. This means another case for Bruno, the town’s cherished chief of police.

6 Bruno and the Carol Singers (short story) – Bruno is occupied with his Christmastime duties. From organizing carolers to playing Father Christmas for the local schoolchildren, Bruno has his hands full . . . at least until some funds raised for charity go missing.

7 The Resistance Man – First, there’s the evidence that a veteran of the French Resistance is connected to a notorious train robbery; then, the burglary of a former British spymaster’s estate; and, finally, the murder of an antiques dealer whose lover is conveniently on the lam. As Bruno investigates, it becomes clear that they are connected.

8 The Children Return (also known as Children of War ) – Bruno’s village of St. Denis has been called many things, but a hotbed of international intrigue has never been one of them . . . until now. When an undercover agent is found murdered just as a prodigal son is set to retun from a grim tour in the Middle East, the small town suddenly finds itself host to a determined global tribunal, threatening the usual cheer brought by St. Denis’s annual wine festival.

9 A Market Tale (short story) – As summer blooms, the newest talk of the town is the rapport between Kati, a Swiss tourist, and Marcel, a popular stall owner whom Kati meets over his choice strawberries. None are happier than police chief Bruno to see Marcel interested in love again, but as his friend’s romance deepens, Bruno senses trouble in the form of Marcel’s meddlesome sister Nadette.

10 The Patriarch (also known as The Dying Season ) – Bruno Courrèges is thrilled when he receives an invitation to the lavish birthday celebration of his childhood hero, World War II flying ace Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix. But when the party ends in the death of one of Marco’s longtime friends, Gilbert, it turns into another day on the job for St. Denis’s chief of police.

11 Fatal Pursuit – It’s the start of summer, and Bruno’s found himself the last-minute replacement navigator in a car rally race. The event has attracted a spate of outsiders with deep pockets, big egos and, in the case of one young Englishman, an intriguing story about a lost Bugatti Type 57C. When a local scholar turns up dead, Bruno suspects unnatural causes.

12 The Templars’ Last Secret – When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near the idyllic French town of St. Denis, chief of police Bruno Courrèges suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands above: a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold. With the help of Amélie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance.

13 A Taste for Vengeance – When a British tourist fails to turn up for a luxurious cooking vacation in the idyllic village in the south of France that Bruno Courrèges calls home, the chief of police is quickly on the case. Monika Felder is nowhere to be found, and her husband, a retired British general, is unreachable.

14 The Chocolate War (short story) – Police chief Bruno enjoys wandering the stalls of the weekly market in the village of St. Denis as they are being loaded with wares. But when Bruno’s old friend Léopold from Senegal start selling African coffee and chocolate more cheaply than Bruno’s old friend Fauquet at his café across the square, a competition erupts between the vendors.

15 The Body in the Castle Well – When Claudia, a young American, turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle in Bruno’s jurisdiction, her death is assumed to be an accident related to opioid use. But her doctor persuades Bruno that things may not be so simple. Thus begins an investigation that leads Bruno to Monsieur de Bourdeille, the scholar with whom the girl had been studying, and then through that man’s past.

How to read me: Bruno, Chief of Police

http://www.howtoread.me/bruno-chief-of-police-books-in-order/

I owe a big thanks to Martin Walker for giving us so much inside information which enhanced our trip so much. I will try to remember to give him credit along the way as I take you along with us on our trip.

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December 15, 2019 - Posted by intlxpatr | Adventure , Blogging , Books , Crime , Cross Cultural , Cultural , Fiction , Food , France , Quality of Life Issues , Road Trips , Travel , Tunisia | Aquitaine , Bordeaux , Bruno Chief of Police , Dordogne , Martin Walker , Vezere

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The Joys Of Binge Reading

A weekly podcast where author and host Jenny Wheeler talks to successful series authors so that you'll never be without a book you can't put down. Recommendations for best selling historical, mystery, romance, suspense and thrillers. Where readers and writers share the guilty pleasures of binge reading.

Martin Walker – Bruno Police Chief

December 13, 2019 By Jenny Wheeler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:43 — 35.0MB) | Embed

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Martin Walker’s Bruno, the French police chief at the heart of his best-selling Perigord mystery series, is everyone’s ideal cop – as well as the town’s most eligible bachelor and a talented host with an international award-winning cook book in his name . . . .

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Martin Walker talks about French charm, his passion for the Perigord, and his years as a diplomatic correspondent in Gorbachev’s Moscow and Clinton’s Washington.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

• Why Martin’s wife Julia i s his most important asset
• The freedom of writing novels
• Hob nobbing with world leaders
• Bruno’s passion for good food
• Charmed by cave dweller sensibilities
• Perigord food and wine ambassador

Where to find Martin Walker: 

Website:   http://www.brunochiefofpolice.com/

Facebook:  @BrunoChiefOfPolice

What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny: But now, here’s Martin.  Hello there Martin and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Martin: Hello Jenny.  I don’t think I’ve ever had an interview from such a long distance before!

Jenny: Yes. It’s wonderful what modern technology can do. You’re in Washington DC and I’m an Auckland New Zealand, and that’s really fun.  You’ve had a distinguished career as a journalist with top newspapers, including as diplomatic correspondence for The Guardian in London. What made you switch to fiction?

Martin: When we were based in Brussels, my wife decided that we’d been foreign correspondents for all of our lives and our children needed a place to be rooted. She decided we should get a house in the Perigord, which we’d visited from time to time because  we have some friends who were there.

Remarkable prehistoric caves

I became increasingly fascinated by the Perigord, particularly by the prehistory, the prehistoric caves, like Lascaux. I remember the shock when I first saw it and thought, my God, these people were in no sense primitive.  We’ve been quite wrong about this. I mean, the artistic sensibility, it was like our own.

And so I began researching, interviewing the archeologists and reading books and visiting all the caves. And I wrote my novel, The Caves of Perigord, which is still in print, I’m proud to say, which is really about what kind of human society that could have produced at Lascaux.

Before that, my books were pretty conventionally journalistic –  a history of the cold war, a  book about Gorbachev in Peristroika. A book about modern America and the history of America and so on and a book about the National Front in England. So the sense of liberation in writing this novel about the Perigord, got me even more locked into the fascination with this part of France.

Moving into Bruno mysteries

Jenny: That’s fantastic. So you moved on to the mystery genre and a French police chief called Bruno. How did you make the choice of genre? You’ve explained the setting, but why did you go to mysteries?

Martin: Well, because in our village in France,  I became friends with a local neighbor who took me down to the  tennis club and rugby club. And I began playing on Friday mornings when I was there, in a little foursome of three local people and me. Of course, it was a very gentle game of tennis from about 10 30 till about midday.

And then we went into the tennis club, which being France has a wonderful kitchen, and we made ourselves a pretty spectacular lunch. And one of the four people I played with was a man who have been in the French army for 10 years and spend his spare time teaching the local kids to play tennis and rugby. He was a hunter, a very keen cook and our village policeman. And I thought this was a splendid individual, a very fine man who tried never to wear a gun, and who’d lost the keys to his handcuffs.

Five paragraphs, for five books

I thought, what a fabulous character. And I’ve got this lovely region of the Perigord –  all I need to do now is work out how to write a crime story,  because if it’s going to be the policeman, it’s going to have to be a mystery  of some kind. And so that’s really how it started.

Then my wife Julia, who had worked in publishing and in journalism and cooking, my wife said, “well, you know, publishers  are always more interested if they think there might be a series coming rather than just a one off. So go away and write five short paragraphs on the next five books in the series,” – which is what I did.

My agent came back to me and said can sell, these in America, Canada, Holland, Germany, and so on. So that’s how it all got going, and I had to then sit down and write the next five.

The secret of Bruno’s charm

Jenny: That’s fantastic. And that’s great advice for a writer, to do that. Like write a paragraph.  I’m starting on Book Seven in a series now, and I’ve got totally bogged down with too much detail, so I need to do that. Put it into one paragraph. 

Bruno is an incredibly likable character. The reviews you read online, everybody just falls in love with him. He’s actually got his own web site as well, hasn’t he?  He was wounded, both physically and romantically, while he was serving in the French peace keeping force in Bosnia and I’m wondering if  is there something about his vulnerabilities that helps make him so likable to readers.

Martin: I think that that might be part of it. I think the first thing is that all of us have this sense that our police ought to be our neighbors, we ought to be able to trust them, to like them. And in fact increasingly these days, particularly in the US where police are armed, that’s less and less the case, given the kind of social problems that are being thrown up that the police have to handle.

Honorable, decent and brave

But I think all of us have an ideal cop, someone who is honorable, decent, and brave and who realizes that in a sense, his work is as much a social worker as being any kind of agent of state repression. So I had this idealistic image, of what a policeman could be, from what I’d seen of my friend in France.

And so I think possibly part of the appeal is the idea of a really nice guy as a cop, but also, as you say,  it’s the vulnerability which balances out all the other skills he has in cooking and so on.. The fact that is he’s constantly living with the prospect of a broken heart.

Jenny: Yes, he’s around about 40 so he’s at an interesting stage of his life. He is regarded as the town’s most eligible bachelor. He’s still unmarried, but there’s that sense that state might change sometime soon. And I’m wondering how interesting this for you as the writer to negotiate that transition, if it’s going to happen.  Is he going to have the same appeal if you’ve married off?

A mind of his own

Martin: Well my wife, whose views I always take with great seriousness, says with the moment I marry Bruno off, I lose half my readers. So I to have to bear that in mind. He hasn’t found the right woman yet. I mean, he hasn’t told me yet. The thing is, Bruno has become a hugely realistic person in my head, as has the whole of St Denis, the people who live there and so on. I mean, they are as real for me as are my real neighbors.  I

I remember once when I was writing one of the books, The Devil’s Cave, and in that, I had a dangerously attractive woman who was quite a baddie. She was determined to seduce Bruno for her own purposes. And my plan for the book, I mean, I’d thought, well, of course. Bruno is just a guy. He will fall for her subtle seductive ways.

But as I was trying to write this chapter, it was like a force field came out of my desk, and my gut was saying, “I am not ready to drop my trousers for this woman”.  It was like he had a mind of his own, this character in my head. And so I’m waiting for him to tell me, what he is you going to do next?

Journalist posing as novelist

Jenny: That’s absolutely wonderful. I love it when the characters become so real that they really do have an identity like that for their creator. The latest book we should mention is called The Body In The Castle Well, and it’s got a wonderful subplot, which reflects your journalistic skills in a little side story about a Perigord tribute concert to the black American singer, Josephine Baker, a superstar in France in the 1920s. That was a lovely part of the story, and I think in quite a few of your books, you draw on the real stuff that happened in that area in the past, don’t you?

Martin: Well I do, because in a way, I’m a bit of a fraud. I’m not really a novelist.  For most of my life I was a journalist, and so I do depend upon research and being reality based. And I’m so fascinated by history, which is what I studied at university.

Extraordinary Josephine Baker

Whether it’s about the French Resistance or about the prehistoric Caves or whatever, I want to make sure that I get it right. You know, I was fascinated by Josephine Baker because not only was she the world’s superstar in the 1920s but when she moved to France and got this chateau in the Dordogne Valley, a chateau that I know quite well. I’ve visited it several times, which now, as I say in the book, (The Body In The Castle Well)  has got this special exhibition of raptors or Peregrine Falcons and Hawks and so on, and you can see them going hunting these birds.

It’s an extraordinary thing. I was fascinated by Josephine Baker herself and the fact that not only was she a real heroine who would smuggle out Resistance documents in her underwear – she was and was decorated by Charles de Gaulle for it – but she was also determined to raise this family  as an example of anti-racism.

Baker’s Rainbow Tribe

She adopted nine children, each one from a different part of the world, to raise them together as part of her family and when Martin Luther King was shot – and remember that Josephine Baker had been at his side at the Great March on Washington in 1963 where he gave his speech, “I have a dream” and  she then led the crowd in We Shall Overcome.  When he was shot, Coretta King, Martin Luther King’s widow, asked Josephine Baker to take over the leadership of the Civil Rights movement and Josephine said  no, I can’t abandon these children I’ve adopted.

Jenny: Oh gosh. Really?  That’s fascinating.  I didn’t know that. Bruno also has his own cookbooks that have done remarkably well. You’ve won international awards for one of them  – The Best Cookbook in French Cuisine, – and I think you have your wife Julia,  partly to credit it for that, don’t you?

Bruno cookbooks something special

Martin: Oh, hugely to credit for that. I mean, every recipe that one finds in a Bruno novel, I have cooked myself, but with Julia standing at my shoulder and Julia, who was also a journalist and wrote for Gourmet magazine and the Washington Post and so on about food, she is an extraordinarily good cook.

And so, when my publisher said, you must do a Bruno cookbook, I turned helplessly to my wife and said, “you’ve got to come in on this.” And, so yes, without Julia, I believe we probably wouldn’t have been in the Perigord, I wouldn’t have been writing a Bruno series, and I certainly wouldn’t have produced a cookbook.  So it’s really all down to her.

Jenny: And I think you’ve got a second one, is it due out soon?

Martin:  It came out, we launched it at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. It’s called Bruno’s Garden Cookbook. It’s a lot more about our garden and the way we’ve become increasingly green. We’re not vegetarians, not at all, but we’re increasingly delighted by the idea of living on our garden, from our garden.

Perigord gourmet delights

Jenny: That’s lovely. I should warn people that are listening that a lot of reviewers say that they get very hungry while they’re reading Bruno novels.

Martin:  Well, my wife says with every novel comes two more kilos…

Jenny: You’ve enjoyed a very strong following in Germany. There is a French-German TV series being made on the Bruno series and some of your works are published first in Germany. How did that link come about?

Martin: Well, I’ve got this absolutely stupendously good German publishe,r Diogenes, and when they first decided that they would take on my novels, I was invited to dinner with the founder of the company, an old man called Daniel Keel. His son Phillip has now taken over, and Daniel at dinner said, well, Martin, we’re going to be behind you, but you have to be behind us. And that means I’d like you to promise me this evening, you will do at least two weeks book tour every year in Germany. And I said, well, okay, but why is that so important?

Five hundred readings in German

He said, because in Germany, they don’t just want to read, they want to see, they want to smell it and want to really feel what an author is like. And it turns out that in Germany, there is this huge tradition of author’s readings. And partly because they have fixed prices on all book sales, every small town in Germany has its own bookstore, and it acts like a kind of a cultural settlement.

It brings in authors on a regular basis for readings. And so this last tour I did in October, I actually did my 500th reading in German language countries, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and we’ve worked out something like over 40,000 people have actually attended these live events and that an extraordinary kind of loyalty base.

I rather enjoy it, partly because I believe we should all have fun. So sometimes I will sing and so on and try and make a bit of a show of it for them. I mean, whenever there’s a song taking place in the book, I will sing the song.

A TV series in the offing

Jenny: That’s wonderful Do you do these readings in English or German?

Martin: My German is a lot better than it was. I always start off giving a talk in German and then there’ll always be a German actor to do the German bits. I will read in English. Then we’ll do Q and A in German. I’ve learned more about Germany, thanks to Bruno, in these last few years, and indeed I’ve seen more Germany than most Germans.

Jenny: That’s fantastic. Going back to the TV series. How far along is that and are we likely to ever see one in English?

Martin: I don’t know. There’s a meeting set up at the Cannes Film Festival in which the French and German people are going to be talking to one of the big American groups about whether they whether they can work together on this. We will see, I don’t know.  I’m just so ignorant of this entire world. I leave these matters to my excellent literary agent.  If it comes about, it all comes about. If it doesn’t, well “C’est la vie”.

Bruno is proving long-lived

Jenny:  Yes. Did you have any idea when you wrote the first Bruno’s that you’d still be writing Bruno 10 years later, nearly 10 years later.

Martin:  No, no. It’s more than 10 years.  I really didn’t.  The first one came out in 2008, so I didn’t have any idea it would go like this – not even when Julia made me write these five paragraphs about the first ones in the series. I think I’ve been very, very lucky, in that I think I was the first person to try and make the Perigord itself and its history and its prehistory and its food and its wines, into a character. And then because it’s very much about this region. And so people very much responded to this sense of place that the Perigord gives to the novels.

Jenny:  Yes. And I think you’re a member of one of the gourmet groups there. You’ve been very much honored as a member of the community these days haven’t you?.

A Perigord food ambassador

Martin: They’ve been terribly nice to me and very welcoming to me and to the family, and to our basset hound.. Yes. I was elected a Grand Consul de la Vinee de Bergerac, set up back in near 1254 to uphold the quality of Bergerac wines. And I’m also a Chevalier du Foie Gras by the Confrerie du Paté de Périgord.  Things like that. They couldn’t have been nicer to me.

Jenny: That’s lovely. Moving on to your wider career. Some of the books you’ve written sound fascinating and they reflect your career as a foreign correspondent. You’ve covered the end of Communism in Moscow. You covered Clinton’s Washington and the unhappy story of the EU and Brussels. What would you say that were the most interesting things that stand out for you now. And would you have predicted Brexit back then?

Chilling out with Gorbachev

Martin:  Well, there are a number of events that stand out. One of them was, I got to know Margaret Thatcher quite well when I was in Moscow, because she’d read my book about Gorbachev and Perestroika, which came out very early, in 1986 and she liked it.

And she would make a point whenever she was in Moscow of having a. a quiet private chat with me. And then I would go and see her after she was no longer became Prime Minister. I never voted for her, but I admired the hell out of her, as a woman, as a human being.  So being with her in Moscow and sitting outside the room in the Kremlin where she and Gorbachev were talking and hearing gales of laughter coming from inside.

And then at the summit in Malta 1980 when George Bush met Gorbachev for the first time, they were planning to meet in ships in the harbor, and there was a huge storm came up. George Bush was trapped on his American battleship. Gorbachev was on a Russian cruise ship and I was with him. I suddenly found myself with Gorbachev and Edward Shevardnadze the Foreign Minister at the bar, having coffee, because there was nothing else to do, cause Bush couldn’t leave his boat.

Hob nobbing with Clinton

And so having this impromptu chat with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze was great fun. And then after Moscow, The Guardian moved me to Washington. And I went down to see Bill Clinton in Arkansas, who I’d known from university days in Oxford. And he said, well, what are you up to now?

And I said, well, as well as doing The Guardian stuff in Washington. I’m working on a book on the history of the Cold War. And he said, you know, Martin, all of our lives, great power relations have been about missiles and arms controls summits, and we’re heading into a new world.

You won’t be geo-politics anymore. It’s going to be geo-economics. Instead of missiles. it’s going to be your trade figures, and instead of arms controls summits, it’s going to be economic and trade summits. I thought, you’re absolutely right. We’re going from the geo-politics, to the geo-economics. That was an extraordinary insight from a man I still think of very, very highly.  So yes, you have this access to people who are in the hot seat making decisions, and it’s fascinating.

The Brexit mess

What I remember from Brussels in particular was that I was one of the group of journalists who latched onto a story about corruption in the European Commission, which led eventually to the mass resignation of the entire group, all 13 members at the time of the European Commission, which had never happened before, and it was a real breakthrough moment, which helped shift the balance of power from the Commission towards the Parliament.

I remember thinking then that unless they really cleaned up this mess in Brussels, it was going to be very, very hard to get people to carry on supporting it, and sadly, they haven’t been willing to do it.

Jenny: Yes, I haven’t followed it at all closely, but sitting on the other side of the world, it sounds as if the pro Brexit people in Britain at the time of the referendum, just did a very poor job of representing what the full significance of the change was, but they’ve got themselves into a real hole now, haven’t they? How do you think it’s going to end?

‘The best lack all conviction’

Martin: Well I think you’re actually right. They didn’t campaign well, and they were up against a big lie from Boris Johnson and  the Brexiteers about how much money would be coming back to England if we left the EU. There’s a poem, by the Irish poet WB Yeats, Easter 1916, when he says, “The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.” 

And in Brexit, those who were in support of staying – we lacked all conviction because we had our own critiques of the European Union.  When I think of the Fisheries Policy it’s is an economic crime, and I think every agricultural policy of the EU has been a disaster. However, saying all that, on the balance, I think we just stay together and fix it.

The secret of Martin’s success

By contrast, the people who hated Europe, who wanted to be out, they have this passionate intensity, and that’s a very powerful tool in politics. So whether we can at the last minute, save ourselves from what will be a really grim economic future if we’re out there without a deal,  we will have to see.

Jenny: Yes. Switching back to your writing and career, is there one thing you’ve done perhaps more than any other, that you see as the secret of your success as a fiction author particularly.

Martin: I think one thing is always been prepared to go and do these readings, not just in Germany and Switzerland, but elsewhere.  And I’ve done that. Literally. I’ve done a lot in England. Every year. I’ll do a couple of tours in the US so, I think that’s been something. And then secondly , I think everybody in the world has a soft spot for the French way of life.

However much we want to criticize France as a country or French politicians, there is something about the whole way of life, from the scent of warm croissants to the “Ooh la la”  – something about the whole French approach to life which we all find extremely seductive.

The Joys of Binge reading

 And so I think I’ve been very, very lucky. And in writing about La Belle France and finding that I’m in a part of France which is absolutely unique and magical, I’m still delighted being in the Perigord.

Jenny: You split your time now I think between Washington and the Perigord?

Martin:  I guess about three months of the year I’m on the road doing bookstores and promotion events and so on, but about half the year I’m in the Perigord and the rest in Washington, or indeed in London. I’ll be in London for Christmas, for example, for the usual family event.

Jenny: Turning to Martin as reader, because this is called The Joys of Binge Reading. I don’t know if you’ve ever really have much time for binge reading, but are there people that read for your entertainment, not for your research, and have you any recommendations for listeners?

Writers to admire. . .

Martin: Oh, yes. My classic binge read is a man called Patrick O’Brien , who wrote a series – The Master and Commander series about Jack Aubrey, a swash-buckling English Naval officer in the Napoleonic Wars and his great friend Stephen Maturin. I’ve read them throughout at least three times, which are probably came about because as a boy I was fascinated by C S Forester’s Hornblower series. I’ve always loved Sherlock Holmes, who I think is a master, but I’ve also enjoyed the other books of Conan Doyle in particular, his historical novels.

Stories like The White Company,   (1989) ) about the Hundred Years War which meant that I knew an awful lot about the Hundred Years War before I actually came to the Perigord. And then I do enjoy a lot of science fiction, a lot of speculative fiction, which explores alternative ways in which the human race will respond to its environment. So I always love the novels o f Steven Baxter . I think Robert Heinlein is an absolute classic. His novella The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is an absolute jewel of its kind, in which he tries t o imagine what an entirely free market society might be like.

A taste for speculative fiction

And then there’s the Kim Stanley Robinson trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars which I think are just terrific. And whenever I’m short for something, I just reach for other Maigret.  

Jenny: And do you read a digitally now?

Martin: I read E-books when traveling, because when you’re on a month-long book tour, it’s a bit of a problem. But I much prefer the feel of a book in my hand.

Jenny: Yes. We’re coming to the end of our time together. So circling around, looking back over your writing life at the stage of your career, if you were doing it all again, is there anything that you would change? And if so, what.

Martin: Well I’d endeavor to meet my wife earlier and have been married to her for longer, I guess.  Other than that, no, not really. I just think that like so many people of my generation who were born in World War II, we saw extraordinary economic growth.

The blessing of a happy marriage

We enjoyed public free education and in Britain free healthcare. I mean we were so lucky in all of that. And then in my career, being in Moscow for years at the end of the Cold War and then  in Washington,  I am just so lucky with all the things I’ve been through. I think if I have to put anything on my gravestone, it will be, “He didn’t miss much.”

Jenny: So what stage did you and Julia get together?

Martin: Oh, well, we actually met, I can tell you the date. It was the 26th of February 19, 1977 and we got married in May of the following year, and we’ve been together ever since. So it’s 41 years. And we’ve got two wonderful daughters, and Julia has been with me all the way. Moscow, and then in Washington and in Brussels, and  . . . I don’t know. She’s an extraordinary woman and will never understand her.  I admire her and go along with the flow.

What’s next for Martin?

Jenny: !t’s a wonderful tribute for a husband to make, that they wish they’d met their wife earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say that before. So what is next for Martin the writer? Are you a big goal setter? When you look over the next 12 months, what are you working on?

Martin:  Well, I’m working on a book about the Perigord itself, on its history and traditions and culture.  I’m close to being finished. The next Bruno that will come out next year, which is going to be called The Shooting At Chateau Rock is already written and with my publisher. And I’m now writing the one for 2021 and I’ve also got an idea I’m toying with, for an entirely different set of historical novels or speculative historical novels, which has nothing to do with Bruno at all.

So I have all of these things. And then of course, I write a column about wine every month for a British paper and for a German magazine.  I do keep busy, which is the best thing that can happen to anybody at this age.

Jenny: Yes. Absolutely. Obviously you have a lot of personal interaction with your readers, with the tours that you do, and from the fact that you’re willing to do, be out there and do things like sing songs, you obviously enjoy that rapport with them. Do you also interact online and if so, where can people find you?

Meeting up with readers

Martin:  I do to a degree. We have the Bruno chief of police website, there’s a blog and there’s a lot about the Perigord and the Bruno and so on and about food. That’s probably the best place. I’m on Facebook, but I’m getting to the point apparently where I’m not going to be able to have any more Facebook friends cause there’s a limit to how many you can have. So the website is probably the best way.

Jenny: That’s wonderful. And have you got any tours coming up?

Martin:  Yes, I do. I’ve just finished one and I’ve just done some in the States, but we’re planning now the tour in May in Germany of next year, and the big tour in the States in June.   At the end of January and early February, I’ll be doing another little tour in Florida, then I’ve got some literary festivals in France to attend. There’s no rest for the wicked.

More French mysteries to enjoy

Jenny: It sounds like it! Look, it’s been wonderful to talk and thank you so much for your time with all the other things you’ve got on I really appreciate you making yourself available.

Martin: Well, thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure to talk about books and to address readers even if it’s second hand.

If you enjoyed listening to Martin Walker you might also enjoy  Cara Black ‘s Paris murder mysteries or Mark Pryor’s American Embassy in Paris mysteries

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Reviews of Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

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Bruno, Chief of Police

by Martin Walker

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About this Book

Book summary.

The first installment in a wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoît Courrèges, a policeman in a small French village where the rituals of the café still rule. Bruno—as he is affectionately nicknamed—may be the town’s only municipal policeman, but in the hearts and minds of its denizens, he is chief of police. Bruno is a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage; patronizing the weekly market; sparring with, and basically ignoring, the European Union bureaucrats from Brussels. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes everything and galvanizes Bruno’s attention: the man was found with a swastika carved into his chest. Because of the case’s potential political ramifications, a young policewoman is sent from Paris to aid Bruno with his investigation. The two immediately suspect militants from the anti-immigrant National Front, but when a visiting scholar helps to untangle the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive. His investigation draws him into one of the darkest chapters of French history—World War II, a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother. Bruno soon discovers that even his seemingly perfect corner of la belle France is not exempt from that period’s sinister legacy. Bruno, Chief of Police is deftly dark, mesmerizing, and totally engaging.

On a bright May morning, so early that the last of the mist was still lingering low over a bend in the Vézère River, a white van drew to a halt on the ridge that overlooked the small French town. A man climbed out, strode to the edge of the road and stretched mightily as he admired the familiar view of St. Denis. The town emerged from the lush green of the trees and meadows like a tumbled heap of treasure; the golden stone of the buildings, the ruby red tiles of the rooftops and the silver curve of the river running through it. The houses clustered down the slope and around the main square of the Hôtel de Ville where the council chamber, its Mairie, and the office of the town’s own policeman perched above the thick stone columns that framed the covered market. The grime of three centuries only lately scrubbed away, its honey-colored stone glowed richly in the morning sun. On the far side of the square stood the venerable church, its thick walls and squat tower ...

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I’m glad to know that Walker promises more Bruno books. As for the flagship novel of the series, it was such a pleasure to read that I can’t help but suspect Walker had equal fun writing it... continued

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(Reviewed by Donna Chavez ).

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Beyond the Book

The two faces of france during wwii.

What happens when part of a country's population embraces the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity while the rest abandon those principles in favor of work, family, fatherland, and a heavy dose of anti-Semitism? Moreover, what if that ideological split divides not only the country's people, but its leadership as well? If that country is France during World War II, facing off against a German fighting machine that some perceived as undefeatable, the answer is simple: the country is rent in two. As soon as Germany stormed into Paris in June 1940 the French people were forced to choose one side or the other. Either agree with Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and General Charles de Gaulle and oppose Hitler, or side with vice-premier Henri...

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Bruno, Chief of Police Books In Order

Publication order of bruno, chief of police books.

Chief of Police is an engaging series of books on the intrigues and captivating plots of an investigator who has to find a murderer with the pressure coming in from different higher ups. The investigator, Bruno whose real name is Brunoit gets to a new small town where as he begins to settle down and get accustomed to the ways of the peaceful town a murder of one of the local takes place.

The character Bruno whose past shows us an orphaned boy as a result of abandonment then joins the military service for over 10 years and gets a medal of courage later on. After he leaves the army he chooses to carry his retirement in the small town in St. Denis where he is the chief of police and the only policeman present in the village. He is the only reliable person to solve the murder of one of the town’s residents.

He becomes involved in almost all the towns cultures and understands its culture. The time he spends with the war veterans who cannot speak, he is a mentor to the kids in the town and has a rapport with the bakers and cheese makers as we soon find out he is a great chef with quite the culinary skills. Apart from this general outlook he knows the secrets of the town. He gets to know the families that don’t get along and why, the people having an affair and their political views.

His role before the murder is to stop illegal activities between the farmers and the traders. He is a charming arbitrator and he knows practically everyone in the village. He takes part in the community life being in dances, playing tennis with the Baron and playing with the kids. The town has a population of 2000 or less and everyone knows each other.

After the murder of the Algerian national and the arrival of detectives and the national police to help solve this crime Bruno has the advantage of knowing who would most likely be the suspect. The fact that it was a foreign national demands the attention of the national police as the foreign countries put pressure on France to solve the murder as it might be seen as a racial attack. The series follows the trail Bruno takes in finding the truth and includes a lot of plots and twists that make this law enforcement series worth reading.

Bruno gets to this part of the world after being recommended by a friend to the Mayor of the town. His past love life ended badly for him with the lady ending up dead and this affects his sense of duty and shapes his character to always fight injustice and enforce the law to protect those who can’t protect themselves.

The series follows Bruno as he solves different crimes and tries to safeguard the culture and life of this small town. The crimes he has to solve range from murder to burglary to rescue mission. This series also has an international framework related to other countries involvement. It also talks about the time in the army giving a real picture of history through one person’s eyes and experience. It also includes the experiences of the French North Africans during the De Gaulle period in time.

The reader will resonate with the character of Bruno as he is not portrayed as a man with superheroes but merely an easy going guy trying to find the truth in each series. He is charming and you will find yourself feeling what he feels and trying to protect him from any harm from the would be perpetrators and the politicians putting pressure and demanding cases to be closed toute de suite.

The series will also introduce a different side of France apart from the glamour and flashy lights of Paris. The book will take you to the quiet village where the real culture of France is shown. The tastes, sounds and colors are revealed in the opening chapters of the book and create a mental picture of the place and of its people. You also get to learn the attitudes of the people not all of them get along due to the war and the resistance. Everyone picks a side and some people avoid each other completely based on their beliefs.

The series may represent an old town with not too much development but it does include topics that are quite relevant today. Gayism, racialism, effects on war then and presently. These topics will change your beliefs and understand how Bruno accepts all of this and tries to be a friend to all.

The Chief of Police series is quite informative on all the aspects of France and Bruno represents a character that has gone through the country’s tough times with personal loss and endurance and finally leaves the intrigues and fast life to settle in this small town where he hopes to find a love interest and settle with children of his own. Coming to this village he finds different people who have already accomplished all he has ever wanted in a serene environment and he is incorporated into the community with everyone coming to know him and like him. He makes friends and occasionally cooks for them. Being so involved and the only policeman and police chief in the village he is willing to protect the values of the people he has come to love fervently. With this attitude and the things he has learnt from the people around he is able to go through evidence in various crimes with a unique understanding that helps him follow a certain investigative path to find the culprit without bias or sensationalism.

Basically the Chief of Police series centers around a man, Bruno willing to get justice for the victims and keep this new place he calls home safe from anyone who would want to break that peace apart. The France setting of the village shows a people independent from the fast life but still capable of the evils found almost everywhere in the world and it’s up to the policeman to put a stop to these crimes. The series will keep you interested from one book to the next.

One Response to “Bruno, Chief of Police”

I have been enjoying reading about Bruno and am now on book 5 and looking forward to reading lots more.

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Your Books in Order

Bruno, Chief of Police Books in order: How to read Martin Walker’s series?

Written by English journalist Martin Walker, the Bruno detective series is set in the Périgord region of France. Benoit “Bruno” Courreges is the only policeman in the small village of Saint-Denis in the South of France. He’s a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it. But when there’s a murder, he’s always ready to do the work.

How to read the Bruno, Chief of Police Series in order?

Every entry in the Bruno, Chief of Police book series works as a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one novel to the other.

• Bruno, Chief of Police – Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that. Now, Bruno is paired with a young policewoman from Paris and the two suspect anti-immigrant militants. As they learn more about the dead man’s past, Bruno’s suspicions turn toward a more complex motive.
• The Dark Vineyard – When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers, the idyllic town finds itself the center of an intense drama. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.
• Black Diamond – Something dangerous is afoot in St. Denis. In the space of a few weeks, the normally sleepy village sees attacks on Vietnamese vendors, arson at a local Asian restaurant, subpar truffles from China smuggled into outgoing shipments at a nearby market-all of it threatening the Dordogne’s truffle trade and all of it spelling trouble for Benoît “Bruno” Courrèges, master chef, devoted oenophile, and, most important, beloved chief of police.
• Bruno and the Carol Singers (short story, also known as Bruno and le Pere Noel) – Bruno is occupied with his Christmastime duties. From organizing carolers to playing Father Christmas for the local schoolchildren, Bruno has his hands full . . . at least until some funds raised for charity go missing.
• The Crowded Grave – It’s spring in the idyllic village of St. Denis, and for Chief of Police Bruno Courrèges that means lamb stews, bottles of his beloved Pomerol, morning walks with his hound, Gigi, and a new string of regional crimes and international capers. When a local archaeological team searching for Neanderthal remains turns up a corpse with a watch on its wrist and a bullet in its head, it’s up to Bruno to solve the case.

• The Devil’s Cave – It’s spring in St. Denis. The village choir is preparing for its Easter concert, the wildflowers are blooming, and among the lazy whorls of the river a dead woman is found floating in a boat. This means another case for Bruno, the town’s cherished chief of police.
• The Resistance Man – First, there’s the evidence that a veteran of the French Resistance is connected to a notorious train robbery; then, the burglary of a former British spymaster’s estate; and, finally, the murder of an antiques dealer whose lover is conveniently on the lam. As Bruno investigates, it becomes clear that they are connected.
• The Children Return (also known as Children of War ) – Bruno’s village of St. Denis has been called many things, but a hotbed of international intrigue has never been one of them . . . until now. When an undercover agent is found murdered just as a prodigal son is set to retun from a grim tour in the Middle East, the small town suddenly finds itself host to a determined global tribunal, threatening the usual cheer brought by St. Denis’s annual wine festival.
• A Market Tale (short story) – As summer blooms, the newest talk of the town is the rapport between Kati, a Swiss tourist, and Marcel, a popular stall owner whom Kati meets over his choice strawberries. None are happier than police chief Bruno to see Marcel interested in love again, but as his friend’s romance deepens, Bruno senses trouble in the form of Marcel’s meddlesome sister Nadette.
• The Patriarch (also known as The Dying Season ) – Bruno Courrèges is thrilled when he receives an invitation to the lavish birthday celebration of his childhood hero, World War II flying ace Marco “the Patriarch” Desaix. But when the party ends in the death of one of Marco’s longtime friends, Gilbert, it turns into another day on the job for St. Denis’s chief of police.

• Fatal Pursuit – It’s the start of summer, and Bruno’s found himself the last-minute replacement navigator in a car rally race. The event has attracted a spate of outsiders with deep pockets, big egos and, in the case of one young Englishman, an intriguing story about a lost Bugatti Type 57C. When a local scholar turns up dead, Bruno suspects unnatural causes.
• The Templars’ Last Secret – When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near the idyllic French town of St. Denis, chief of police Bruno Courrèges suspects a connection to the great ruin that stands above: a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold. With the help of Amélie, a young newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance.
• A Taste for Vengeance – When a British tourist fails to turn up for a luxurious cooking vacation in the idyllic village in the south of France that Bruno Courrèges calls home, the chief of police is quickly on the case. Monika Felder is nowhere to be found, and her husband, a retired British general, is unreachable.
• The Chocolate War (short story) – Police chief Bruno enjoys wandering the stalls of the weekly market in the village of St. Denis as they are being loaded with wares. But when Bruno’s old friend Léopold from Senegal start selling African coffee and chocolate more cheaply than Bruno’s old friend Fauquet at his café across the square, a competition erupts between the vendors.
• The Body in the Castle Well – When Claudia, a young American, turns up dead in the courtyard of an ancient castle in Bruno’s jurisdiction, her death is assumed to be an accident related to opioid use. But her doctor persuades Bruno that things may not be so simple. Thus begins an investigation that leads Bruno to Monsieur de Bourdeille, the scholar with whom the girl had been studying, and then through that man’s past.
• Oystercatcher (short story) – Called upon to assist in an investigation of oyster thieves at the Bay of Arcachon by the Commissaire Pleven of the Bordeaux police, Bruno relishes an opportunity to momentarily reunite with the beautiful and ambitious Isabelle. When he and Isabelle witness strange activity out in the bay one evening–Bruno gets thrust into the center of action he had never bargained for.

• A Shooting at Chateau Rock – Following the funeral of a local farmer, Bruno gets a phone call from his son. He tells Bruno that before his father’s sudden death, he had signed over his property to an insurance company in return for a subscription to a luxury retirement home. Bruno discovers that both the retirement home and the insurance company are scams with links to a Russian oligarch whose dealings are already being tracked by the French police.
• The Coldest Case – After attending an exhibit on the facial reconstruction of ancient skulls, Bruno wonders if this technology might provide an invaluable clue to a thirty-year-old cold case. But learning the identity of the murder victim is only the beginning. The investigation quickly turns thorny and leads Bruno to a reclusive vintner, Henri Bazaine, whose education at a vocational school in a formerly Communist region has raised some eyebrows.
• To Kill a Troubadour – It is summer in St Denis and Bruno is busy organizing the annual village concert. He’s hired a local Périgord folk group, Les Troubadours, to perform their latest hit ‘A Song for Catalonia’. But when the song unexpectedly goes viral, the Spanish government, clamping down on the Catalonian bid for independence, bans Les Troubadours from performing it. The timing couldn’t be worse, and Bruno finds himself under yet more pressure when a specialist sniper’s bullet is found in a wrecked car near Bergerac.

• A Chateau Under Siege (2023) – The town of Sarlat is staging a reenactment of its liberation from the British in the Hundred Years War when the play’s French hero, Brice Kerquelin, is stabbed and feared fatally wounded. Is it an unfortunate prop malfunction-or something more sinister? The stricken man happens to be number two in the French intelligence service, in line for the top job. Bruno is tasked with the safety of the victim’s daughters, Claire and Nadia, as well as their father’s old Silicon Valley buddies, ostensibly in town for a reunion. One friend from Taiwan, a tycoon in chip fabrication, soon goes missing, and Bruno suspects there may be a link to the French government’s efforts to build a chip industry in Europe-something powerful forces in Russia and China are determined to scuttle.
• Bruno’s Challenge & Other Dordogne Tales – A collection of short stories. In story after story, Bruno settles town disputes, mediates family quarrels, and tracks down lawbreakers in his adored village of St. Denis and its environs. Featured meals in the collection include a fatty Christmas goose, a savory nettle soup with crème fraîche, and a fluffy quiche Lorraine.
• Bruno’s Cookbook – A French cookbook that immerses readers in the delectable countryside cuisine of Bruno’s beloved Périgord region, featuring favorite meals from Roasted Tomato Tapenade and Tarragon Chicken to A Most Indulgent Chocolate Cake.

If you like the Bruno, Chief of Police reading order, you may also want to check out the Guido Brunetti books or our guide to the Verlaque and Bonnet series . Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.

A contributing writer here, Carole is in charge of comicbooktreasury.com, our sister website dedicated to comic book reading orders. She likes reading Fantasy books, classical literature, and non-fiction about how Victorians died (but also lived), Her favorite authors are Terry Pratchett, Jane Austen, Kurt Vonnegut, and Robin Hobb. Follow her on Twitter .

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Montpellier, France Thank you very much for this list and summary!

FYI, friends: the “Bruno and the Carol Singers” ebook is also knows as “Bruno and le Pere Noel.”

Bruno and the Carol Singers should be read BEFORE The Crowded Grave. Without giving away anything, the storyline doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Hi Chris Geyer, thank you for your comment and pointing out that mistake! I updated the reading order, placing Bruno and the Carol Singers before The Crowded Grave. Good reading!

My Dear Bruno Fan, THANK YOU for this invaluable list & brief synopses. Also, I am always grateful for readers’ comments providing another delicious layer of the cake to enjoyable books. Cheers to Reading!

Has anyone noticed how the Bruno series is similar to the Gamache series? I find that I want to be visiting St Denis the way I want to be in Three Pines. Gamache and Bruno have different personalities but they have the same sensibilities.

I totally am with you…just finished the Crowded Grave again, and picking up The Madness of Crowds!!! Both villages carried me through the Pandemic

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Have you heard of Bruno, Chief of Police?

Have you heard of Bruno, Chief of Police?  My best Francophile friend from Colby College, junior year in Caen, France, 1973, Penny, who is now retired and enjoys a part time job as a substitute librarian in the Hull Public Library, Hull, Massachusetts, discovered this delightful series of light, humorous mysteries which take place near Les Eyzies, Dordogne, Southwest France. Penny knows this region well, having co-led one of our “small group gourmet Southwestern France tours” there a few years ago. We have been running tours of Southwestern France to this region since 1998 and have a wonderful group of happy guests who have explored the region with us. If you have landed on this blog post, you may well be one of them.

Penny has me hooked on the series. Here is a good description of the author, Martin Walker, and why the series has become so popular:

https://shepherd.com/best-books/perigord-france

Thanks to Penny and the Hull Library, I have read all the books about Bruno that are listed below and loved every single one.

The Chronology of Bruno

• Bruno, Chief of Police (2008)
• Dark Vineyard (2009)
• Black Diamond (2010)
• The Crowded Grave (2011)
• The Devil’s Cave (2012)
• The Resistance Man (2013)
• Children of War (2014)
• The Patriarch (2015)

If you are a fan of the Bruno series, I highly recommend that you consider traveling to the Dordogne region of France—especially the area around the fascinating village of Les Eyzies—which is the neighborhood Bruno lives in and brings to life in each of his entertaining stories.

Les Eyzies is one of the most fascinating areas of Europe I have ever been to. It is the birthplace of the science of prehistoric man. The mountains in this region are “tuffeau” stone and easily dug into with simple tools. This is probably why more prehistoric caves have been discovered in this region than in any other part of the world. On our tours you can visit caves that contain authentic drawings from the Megalithic Period of human history. Expert guides explain the significance of the 35,000 year old drawings, which anthropologists believe were religious expressions from the earliest times.

Every time I visit these caves I get serious goose bumps in picturing our human predecessors when they were developing traditions that evolved over thousands of years into who we are today.

The Dordogne region of Southwest France is also known by its ancient name, Le Périgord. In the Bruno novels you read about the gastronomy of this region—said to be the best in all France. Olde Ipswich Tours takes you to some of the best restaurants in the Périgord, because this is what the Périgord is all about. For example, truffles.  Everyone knows about truffles and their magical taste which causes them to be the most sought after mushroom in the world. The terrain of the Périgord region happens to be particularly ideal for truffle growing, and so you will find truffles on the menu of every gourmet restaurant and in every local market. Bruno’s stories are full of truffle stories.

Then there is foie gras. The Périgord is the capital of foie gras. Don’t worry…if you think force feeding geese and ducks to fatten their livers is cruel, we will take you on a foie gras educational experience where the farmer will convince you that this is not at all a cruel process, but in fact one that dates to pre-Roman times and is especially kind to the animals!

We hope you will read one of the Bruno books, become enamored of the Dordogne Périgord region of France, and let us show you around on our small group gourmet educational tours of the Dordogne region in France, in our Bordeaux, Dordogne & Languedoc tour.

To learn more about our tour to Bordeaux, Dordogne & Languedoc tour, click here. We hope to hear from you soon!

Owner, Olde Ipswich Tours

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Take a tour of the Travis Mills Foundation Veterans Retreat

ROME, Maine (WABI) - It’s not often that the public gets the opportunity to tour the Travis Mills Foundation Veterans Retreat but you can do so Sunday.

They’re hosting an open house at the retreat in Rome from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

You will get the chance to tour the campus, learn more about how they serve post 9-11 recalibrated veterans and their families in their 7 life-changing programs.

You’ll also get a chance to meet Travis Mills himself. Mills founded the Travis Mills Foundation in 2013.

He is one of only five quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition to the open house tomorrow, they’re also hosting a yard sale.

More information can be found at travismillsfoundation.org.

Copyright 2024 WABI. All rights reserved.

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Justin timberlake’s ‘ruin the tour’ meme, explained.

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Musician Justin Timberlake is seen in a booking photo on June 18, 2024 in Sag Harbor, New York. ... [+] Timberlake was charged with driving while intoxicated. (Photo by Sag Harbor Police Department via Getty Images)

Justin Timberlake’s recent arrest inspired a meme that echoes the reported conversation between Timberlake and the arresting officer, with social media commentators poking fun at the pop star.

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Timberlake was referring to The Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which marks the pop star’s first world tour in five years; it was meant to be something of a comeback.

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One commentator compared Timberlake’s arrest to a scene from Netflix’s Bojack Horseman , an animated comedy about a once-beloved actor plagued by addiction issues and emotional dysfunction, his former fame proving a major obstacle to rehabilitation.

Timberlake’s Arrest Inspires Many Memes

Justin Timberlake’s bleary-eyed mugshot instantly sparked a meme on social media, with commentators using the image as shorthand for desperation and despair.

However, the bleakness of the “world tour” quote proved even more appealing, with commentators posting the now-iconic exchange into funny and dramatic movie scenes.

Others found a way to insert the quote into references and one-liners.

That’s really the extent of it—the meme remains something of a copy-and-paste joke, with little signs of mutation or evolution. Some commentators even found the meme to be overdone and annoying, stale from the moment it was cooked up.

However, it’s pretty telling that so much of the internet seems to take delight in Timberlake’s dramatic fall from grace.

Why Does The Internet Dislike Justin Timberlake?

In the early 2000s, during the height of Timberlake’s fame, the singer’s break-up with Britney Spears turned into a messy public spectacle, with Timberlake using his “Cry Me A River” music video to imply that Spears had cheated on him.

The public shaming of Spears by media outlets and fans is well-documented at this point, but the release of Spears’ book, “The Woman in Me,” completely shifted the narrative.

In the book, Spears claimed that Timberlake was a serial cheater during their time together, and that he had pressured her to get an abortion after she became pregnant.

Timberlake has also been criticized for his role in “Nipplegate,” a publicity stunt during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, in which he uncovered Janet Jackson’s breast. The stunt sparked a huge controversy and resulted in the public shaming of Jackson, whose career suffered heavily as a result.

Timberlake, on the other hand, suffered no consequences, and during the height of the backlash, the pop star never spoke up to defend Jackson.

In 2021, as criticism of Timberlake started to spread throughout the internet and beyond, the singer posted a vague apology to Jackson and Spears on Instagram, writing that he was “deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right.”

Hours after Timberlake’s recent arrest, eagle-eyed fans noticed that Britney Spears posted a picture of a cocktail on Instagram , a celebration of her vacation in Las Vegas. Some interpreted the post as a jab at Timberlake, as the post was captioned:

“It’s the little things.”

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Justin Timberlake Is Charged With Drunken Driving in Sag Harbor

The 43-year-old singer and actor told the police he had one martini after an officer said he saw him go through a stop sign and weave in a lane.

By Maria Cramer and Sean Piccoli

It was shortly after midnight on Tuesday when a Sag Harbor police officer noticed a gray 2025 BMW weave out of a lane and go through a stop sign.

The officer pulled the car over, and when he approached the vehicle on Madison Street, a residential street of the village dotted with modern mansions and 18th-century cottages, the singer and actor Justin Timberlake was behind the wheel.

Mr. Timberlake, 43, had “bloodshot and glassy” eyes and a “strong odor” of alcohol on his breath, and was unsteady on his feet, according to the arrest report filed in Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Tuesday.

When the officer ordered Mr. Timberlake to go through a series of field sobriety tests, such as walking in a straight line and standing on one leg, the singer “performed poorly,” the report stated.

“I had one martini and followed my friends home,” Mr. Timberlake told the officer, according to the report.

Mr. Timberlake, who is scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden on June 25 and June 26, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.

He refused to submit to an alcohol test or initial a statement that said his refusal to submit to the test could be used against him at trial, according to the report. He was held overnight before he was taken to Sag Harbor Village Justice Court, where he was arraigned at 9:30 a.m., the police said.

He was released without bail. His publicist and lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

The night he was arrested, Mr. Timberlake had been at the restaurant and bar of the American Hotel on Main Street, said Julian Ramirez, the hotel’s dining director.

The hotel, where guests coming into the lobby are met with a display case filled with cigars and waiters in white aprons, is about half a mile from where the officer reported seeing Mr. Timberlake go through a stop sign. The kitchen closes at 10 p.m., but the bar will sometimes stay open if there is still a crowd at the restaurant, Mr. Ramirez said.

Sag Harbor is part of the Hamptons, a landscape of imposing mansions and lavish oceanfront retreats about 100 miles east of New York City, where there is a long history of arrests involving vehicles and alcohol and featuring high-profile people.

In 2018, Brian France, a former chief executive of NASCAR, was arrested in Sag Harbor on charges of driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of oxycodone after the police said they saw him drive his Lexus through a stop sign.

In 2012, Jason Kidd, then a point guard who had just signed to play with the New York Knicks, hit a Southampton light pole, pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and wound up on probation, speaking to Long Island high school students about the dangers of drunken driving

Eleven years earlier, Lizzie Grubman, a publicist, backed her Mercedes SUV into a large crowd outside a Hampton nightclub, injuring about 16 people. She was charged with assault, driving while intoxicated and reckless endangerment and served 38 days in jail.

Now comes Mr. Timberlake, who rose to pop stardom in the late 1990s as a teenage member of the boy band ’N Sync, and was once among the most prominent male stars in American music. By 2002, Mr. Timberlake had embarked on a hugely successful solo career, working with cutting-edge pop and R&B producers like Timbaland and the Neptunes.

But his most recent solo album, “Everything I Thought It Was,” was met with criticism and weaker than usual sales when it was released in March, becoming his first solo release to miss No. 1 since “Justified” in 2002.

In recent years, Mr. Timberlake’s behavior toward women in the early 2000s has also come under scrutiny.

The public and media have re-examined his treatment of the singer and actress Britney Spears, whom he dated in the early 2000s, and referenced in songs like “Cry Me a River.” He continued mocking her well after they broke up , making insinuations about her virginity during performances on “Saturday Night Live” and dismissive comments about her music.

He has also acknowledged his failure to defend Janet Jackson, who bore the brunt of the criticism for an infamous Super Bowl halftime performance in 2004, when he tore away part of her costume and revealed her breast.

The mishap, which became known as “the wardrobe malfunction,” came during the performance’s closing duet, which ended with Mr. Timberlake singing “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song.” Ms. Jackson was the subject of a severe backlash , while Mr. Timberlake’s career soared.

Mr. Timberlake, who is now married to the actress Jessica Biel, has conceded that he should have taken more responsibility for what happened.

In an Instagram post in 2021, he apologized to both Ms. Jackson and Ms. Spears.

“I am deeply sorry for the times in my life where my actions contributed to the problem, where I spoke out of turn, or did not speak up for what was right,” he wrote in the post, which is no longer available. “I specifically want to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson.”

But in February 2024, during a performance at Irving Plaza in New York, he appeared to backtrack , when he told the audience that he would “like to take this opportunity to apologize to absolutely nobody,” adding an expletive.

A pair of documentaries in 2022 about Ms. Jackson — one produced by The New York Times and one released on A&E that Ms. Jackson authorized — addressed the Super Bowl performance and its painful aftermath.

In the A&E documentary, Ms. Jackson said that she and Mr. Timberlake remained friends and that she had encouraged him to stay silent after the Super Bowl performance to avoid “drama.”

“He and I have moved on and it’s time for everyone else to do the same,” she said.

But Mr. Timberlake may have trouble eluding the spotlight. Mr. Ramirez, the hotel dining director, said Tuesday that a friend in Portugal had called him to ask about the arrest.

“The whole world is talking about it,” Mr. Ramirez said.

Ben Sisario contributed reporting.

Maria Cramer is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and crime in the city and surrounding areas. More about Maria Cramer