Bruno and the Carol Singers: A Christmas Mystery of the French Countryside

Written by Martin Walker

Narrated by Robert Ian McKenzie

Internationally best-selling author Martin Walker delights audiences with his holiday-themed mystery, "Bruno and the Carol Singers." It's Christmastime in the tiny French village of St. Denis and police chief Bruno CourrEges is busy playing PEre Noel for the children. But when money raised for charity goes missing, Bruno trades in his bag of toys for his badge and sets out to find the thief.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705010976

Martin Walker

MARTIN WALKER is the author of 20 books of fiction and non-fiction, including seven novels featuring police chief Captain Bruno Courreges. He lives with his family in the southwest of France and Washington, DC. He is also senior director of the Global Business Policy Council as well as editor emeritus and international affairs columnist of United Press International, the global news agency. Visit Bruno online at www.brunochiefofpolice.com.

Reviews for Bruno and the Carol Singers

[jamespurcell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Quick, Christmasy and aptly Bruno

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bruno gets a chance to spread Christmas goodness a little farther than usual, and of course it all works out. With Christmas goose and Gigi being the trusted judge of character.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Bruno plays Father Christmas for the town. He arranged a carol sing for Pamela who misses the UK tradition. A Lebanese Christian woman and her son recently moved to town. He receives a call that her convicted husband escaped from the release program. He feels certain the man will show up in town and when something happens to Pamela, he's certain of it. It's more of a feel-good Christmas story than a mystery. This is mainly for fans of the series. Others will probably not find much depth in the story.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5*

I put off reading this short story/novella until December (for the obvious reasons) so some aspects of the story were out of sync with where I had last left Bruno. But it is a great, heart-warming story though not much of a mystery.

[rbeffa_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a short little tale to keep series fans happy in between books. I think a fourth one of these in between stories is just being published and a new novel in the series is coming soon. I expect to read some or all of them in the supposed proper place in the series order. I can tell after 4 novels that I do not want to skip around with this series of books - there is a definite progression that I don't want to spoil. Bruno has played Father Christmas for the children of the village of St. Denis in a prior story and he does it again. The mystery element in this story is pretty slight, and this reader wondered a little about who was really the "bad guy", but Bruno as usual works to make things mostly right.I've yet to read a dud story here, but this one is pretty slight and syrupy sweet for those already familiar with the series. The fate of a character or two was left open at the end of the 4th book but I didn't note any resolution of prior events, especially since one who looked to be gone for quite some time appears right off as well as another who may not have returned. However the prior book ended around the beginning of Spring and here we are all the way to Christmas so all kinds of things could have happened or been resolved. There is however a terrible incongruity in the story which makes this story impossible to set in the timeline. I picked this story up a couple years ago so I do hope the error was fixed at some point. I did note that a reader on Amazon had noted the big continuity error in 2013. I knocked a half star off for the glaring error.

[alanteder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a light fun seasonal short story as a bonus to the Bruno, Chief of Police series of crime novels.This one is light on the crime side and leans more towards capturing the Christmas spirit in Bruno's town of St. Denis. It comes with the recipe for Christmas goose a la Bruno, the preparation of which is incorporated into the story :DAvailable only in eBook editions, the Kindle version comes with the 1st chapter of the very first novel Bruno, Chief Of Police which makes for a nice refresher of the character's introduction. Also sold under the title "Bruno and the Carol Singers" in some markets.