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2000s: Genetically modified crops can be hazardous to your health..
2000s: Genetically modified crops can be hazardous to your health..
St Denis, the fictional town in the middle of the Dordogne is surrounded by hills where crops of all kinds grow in the gentle midday sun. But early one morning, the stillness of the air is shattered by smoke and fumes when the inhabitants of the village awaken to a large fire consuming a barn and the fields where Genetically modified crops are growing
The volunteer fireman dash out followed by Bruno Courrèges, the town’s only municipal policeman, only to find that the smell of petrol definitely indicates arson.
Bruno immediately suspects a group of environmentalists who live nearby, but the fire is only the first strange event as many more are to follow.
The winemakers also lie claim to this land – could this be a turf war French style? One which leads to murder?
Ah St Denis. A small but idyllic place in the middle of the mountains where wine is plentiful and celebrated in the numerous vineyards around the area. There’s plenty of winemakers in the area and they’re after the land around the town – known for its fertility and wine growing abilities. They’re annoyed that GM crops have been growing here and there’s plenty of people with vested interests – Max for example is an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine; whereas Fernando is the heir to an American wine fortune and could have rather different ideas
This is the town where breaking a bottle of wine costing € 2000 is treated as a crime. But the idyllic town has never seen arson before and so this is a very worrying development.
Bruno Courrèges is however France’s answer to Armand Gamache. They are both Francophone foodies, in their own right and his approach to solving crime is to bend the rules a little if he needs to in order to make sure that the justice is served as carefully as a Frenchman would serve his wine and his food – in keeping with the culture of the commune.