The Children Return

by Martin Walker

  As always, I am most grateful to Jane and Caroline Wood in Britain, to Jonathan Segal in New York and to Anna von Planta in Zurich for their irreplaceable editing skills. My family has been part of the Bruno project from the beginning and is always the first to read and comment on my drafts. My wife, Julia, a food writer who is coauthor of the forthcoming The Bruno Cookbook: Tales and Recipes from the Périgord, kindly eats my attempts to cook the food Bruno prepares. Our elder daughter, Kate, runs the brunochiefofpolice.com website. Our younger daughter, Fanny, is the continuity expert, keeping track of meals, characters, events and places as Bruno’s life and biography grow ever more complex with each new book. And Benson, our basset hound, thoughtfully ensures that I never spend too long at the writing desk but get out often to enjoy the magical Périgord landscape that continues to inspire me to spin the tales of Bruno and the fictional town of St. Denis.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Martin Walker served as foreign correspondent for The Guardian in Africa, the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe and was the editor of United Press International. He is a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson Center and directed the Global Policy Council, both in Washington, D.C. He now lives mainly in the Périgord region of France, where he writes, chairs the jury of the Prix Ragueneau cooking prize and is a chevalier of the Confrérie du Pâté de Périgueux. This is his seventh novel featuring Bruno, chief of police.