When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis, competing for its land and spurring resentment among the villagers, the idyllic town--where Benoit "Bruno" Courreges is the town's only policeman--finds itself the center of an intense drama, with suspicious fires at the agricultural research station that is working on genetically-modified crops.
Two young men--Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine, and Fernando, the heir to an American wine fortune--become rivals for the affections of Jacqueline, a flirtatious, newly arrived Quebecoise student of wine. Events grow ever darker, culminating in two suspicious deaths, and Bruno finds that the problems of the present are never far from those of the past.

MARTIN WALKER, after a long career of working in international journalism and for think tanks, now gardens, cooks, explores vineyards, writes and travels. His series of novels featuring Bruno, Chief of Police, are bestsellers in Europe and have been translated into more than fifteen languages. He divides his time between Washington, D.C., and the Dordogne.