The Children Return
A Mystery of the French Countryside
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4.6 • 205 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
With clever twists and action aplenty, this installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Chief of Police Bruno is a journey to St. Denis that readers won't soon forget.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Recent events make the themes of Walker's thoughtful seventh novel set in France's P rigord (after 2014's The Resistance Man) terrorism and prejudice seem eerily prescient. Bruno Courr ges, the St. Denis a police chief, is sickened by the burnt, tortured corpse he discovers and later identifies as Rafiq, an undercover operative investigating extremist infiltration at a nearby mosque. Soon afterward, Bruno learns that local youth Sami Belloumi, an autistic savant, is being transported home from Afghanistan, where he has been forced by jihadists (whom he met through the mosque's school) to engineer lethal terrorist bombs. Sami's return puts St. Denis in the middle of a media firestorm; experts converge to determine his legal treatment even as Rafiq's killers try to silence Sami and Bruno. More thriller than mystery, this installment lacks the warmth of the series' more-local story lines but Bruno still has time to savor food, wine, and his attraction to a FBI liaison.
Customer Reviews
Such fun
Walker paints such delightful pictures of the people, places, and events in St. Denis to the point that I never want his tales to end. More!
Bruno is a pleasure
The bulk of the story was a bit dry and dark for my taste, but I do enjoy the characters and the challenges that Bruno continues to navigate.