"A wonderful new series that follows the exploits of Benoit Courreges, affectionately nicknamed Bruno, the chief of police in a small French village in the South of France where the rituals of the cafe still rule. Meet Bruno, a former soldier who has of late embraced the slow rhythms of country life - his restored farmhouse, the weekly market, sparring with (and basically ignoring) the European Union bureaucrats from Brussels. But the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army galvanizes Bruno's attention: the man was found with a swastika carved into his chest. Bruno immediately suspects militants from the anti-immigrant National Front, and is soon aided by a young policewoman sent from Paris because of the potential political ramifications. But when a visiting scholar helps untangle the dead man's past, Bruno's suspicions soon turn toward a more complex motive than mere hate, back to a tortured period of French history - World War II, when the Vichy government turned on its own citizens to help the Germans wage war. It was a time of terror and betrayal that set brother against brother, a time that cast a shadow that reaches even to Bruno's seemingly perfect corner of la belle France."--Publisher.