Death in the Truffle Wood

Book excerpt: Long a renowned crime writer in France, Pierre Magnan has won numerous prizes and has a huge popular following in his native country. Now, with this mouthwatering series debut, Magnan introduces the celebrated Commissaire Laviolette to U.S. readers. In a small, peaceful village in Provence, the principal source of income is the cultivation and sale of truffes. When Commissaire Laviolette arrives to investigate why several of the town's citizens are missing, it isn't long before their bodies turn up. It takes all of the detective's ingenuity to unravel crimes whose origins are as old as the truffe woods.