The Coldest Case by Martin Walker

The setting called the Perigord, a rural southwestern corner of France, perhaps a 90 minute drive from Bordeaux, and follows the local valley police detective Bruno. Looks like the region is somewhat famous for its prehistoric relics. Bruno's chief, who goes by J-J, keeps a photo of a skull on his door to remind him of an unsolved case from 30 years ago when J-J was new on the force. The identity of the victim and the killer have evaded him for three decades. 

After viewing a museum display about what neanderthals might've looked like, based on anthropological reconstructions, Bruno enlists the renowned anthropologist's aid in doing the same thing with J-J's skull. A student is given the assignment and travels to the Perigord region of France. Her arrival, along with some dogged investigation of media photographs of various festivals of the day, the DNA from the skull (those techniques weren't available back then), and records searches of any database they can find identify the alleged killer and victim, both of whom have/had connections with the cold war era East Germany.

The investigative aspects of this story are quite interesting and entertaining. My problem was that the author spends almost as much time on life in the Perigord as that on the cold case. Page after page after page after page about Bruno jogging with his dog, riding his horse with neighbors, wine selection-tasting-discussion-reminiscing-production yadda yadda yadda, and cooking. Bruno is quite the cook and the author let's us know in no small detail what does into planning, preparing, cooking, serving, sampling, eating, and of course the accompanying wine options. I'd bet the book's content was nearly half and half the cold case and life in the region. And I can't forget to mention that the region is France's version of Southern California when it comes to summer wildfires season, the preparations, assignments, logistics, and the ever present 'improvise-overcome-adapt' that the towns have to do when a wildfire approaches. I really wasn't interested in the good life of the Perigord and would skip dozens and dozens of pages unrelated to the actual subject of the book. The cold war connections are interesting from a Charm School by Nelson Demille (the best espionage book I've ever read) or the TV show The American's perspective.

Walker is the author of what appears to be 14 other Bruno stories and about a half dozen non-fiction books, so he is an established writer with a following of significant size to keep him turning out Detective Bruno books. Now if the author's intent was to portray the comings and goings of what could well be an idyllic region of France, then he was successful. I just wasn't that interested. 

ECD