The Coldest Case

The Dordogne Mysteries, Book 14

By: Martin Walker

Narrated by: Peter Noble

Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

Capturing the magic of the Dordogne and its people, the Dordogne Mysteries are worldwide best sellers. Featuring Bruno, France's favourite policeman, along with gourmet food and wine, local colour, sunshine and murder mystery, no wonder they are so popular.

Bruno Courreges is chief of police of the lovely town of St Denis in the Dordogne. His main wish is to keep the local people safe and his town free from crime. But crime has a way of finding its way to him.    

For 30 years, Bruno's boss, chief of detectives Jalipeau, known as J-J, has been obsessed with his first case. It was never solved and Bruno knows that this failure continues to haunt J-J. A young male body was found in the woods near St Denis and never identified. For all these years, J-J has kept the skull as a reminder. He calls him 'Oscar'.

Visiting the famous pre-history museum in nearby Les Eyzies, Bruno sees some amazingly life-like heads expertly reconstructed from ancient skulls. He suggests performing a similar reconstruction on Oscar as a first step towards at last identifying him. An expert is hired to start the reconstruction and the search for Oscar's killer begins again in earnest.

©2021 Walker & Watson Ltd (P)2021 Quercus Editions Limited

Critic reviews

"Evocative descriptions of the Perigord...distinctive characters...intricate mystery. Readers new to this series will feel right at home." (Publishers Weekly)

Sadly a bit vanilla

I usually can’t put down a book about Bruno Chief of Police, love the usual balance between story and characters lives intermingling. This book did not deliver...
I’ve had enough of the never ending, going nowhere banality of Isobel and Bruno’s romance (sigh) and this cold case story was simply ‘vanilla’ - would even say predictable. The dinner party scene, where the attempted sexual assault was discussed just hours after the incident with the victim actually at the table, sadly not thought through.
I pre-ordered this book and have been excitedly waiting but for first time I’ve been seriously disappointed.

Did not disappoint

I enjoyed this latest book as much as I have the previous books in this series. Hopefully Martin Walker will keep the Bruno stories coming along.

Favourite book of the series.

"The Coldest Case" may be my favourite book of the series - a great mystery and fascinating insights into French history and politics. What an absolute treat!

Another enjoyable Bruno book

I really enjoyed this book and could not put it down. Bruno is one of my favourite literary characters. The reading was excellently done as usual.

Inspector Bruno at his bravest!

The technology went astray sometimes with little gaps but overall it was very enjoyable as usual.
Another good delivery with French accents all around. Covering climate change veganism and history another great learning experience too.

Dull storyline, I gave up listening.

I’m new to this author and series of books, so perhaps it is partly because I am not familiar with previous plots & characters, but I found the entire thing incredibly dull & boring. I gave up listening after 14 chapters as I just couldn’t face listening to any more. I am meant to be listening to it for my crime novel book club, so I persevered as much as I could in the hope that things would pick up, but by half way through absolutely nothing had happened and I was so bored I switched it off.
Lots of detailed descriptions of a variety of things, including landscapes, buildings & food, to the point I think I could recreate several of the dishes Bruno cooks as we were even given exact amounts (100g of butter etc). However, this did little to add any interest to the plot - bulking out a storyline with detail doesn’t necessarily make it interesting it just makes it long.
The chances are that something will happen at some point in the story (I have no idea & if I’m honest I don’t care or expect much will), but by half way through I’d expect something interesting, gripping or a crime to have taken place - most authors I read would likely have had another murder happen when writing about a cold case, but this story has absolutely nothing - not even any procedural detail, other than looking through 30 year old photos. The author (at least up until to the point I gave up in chapter 14) gives his primary attention to cooking, wine, friendship and puppies. Absolutely wholesome topics, but if I wanted that I’d read a different genre or pick up a cookery book, but in a novel that is meant to be about a search for a murdered man & his killer it just makes it an incredibly dull & boring read. I wasn’t expecting blood, guts & gore, but just something … anything of interest to happen, but it was sadly lacking.
I definitely would not recommend this audiobook & won’t be bothering to listen to any of the series. But at least I have something to talk about at tomorrow’s crime book group.

Local colour is not a substitute for plotting or sensitivity

This book will tell you a lot about the region of France it’s set in, and give you recipe ideas - but the mystery plot feels almost an after thought. The guilty party and their broad motivation are telegraphed early and often. The male protagonist is basically a male Mary Sue and a lot of page real estate is taken up showing how amazing he is, and how everyone thinks he (and his dog) are amazing.

What really irritated me though, was the handling of an account of attempted sexual assault in the book. The assault is not germane to either the plot or character development, other than to try to make the male protagonist seem like a hero. The aftermath is totally unrealistic in terms of everyone’s reactions and comments, and trivialises a serious issue.

The writing of women in this book is particularly poor, and the ultimate delivery of “justice” is unsatisfying.

Superb narration

Another interesting story of Bruno and for me the narration by Peter Noble with his French accent and various character voices makes the book come alive.

Who needs tv?

Another most enjoyable Bruno story. Some history learned too, as well as recipes and vivid descriptions of forest fires.

Martin Walker just gets better.

MW has created a lovely group of characters who are now like old friends and the story line is one of his best.