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    Death at the Chateau Bremont
    Death at the Chateau Bremont
    Death at the Chateau Bremont
    Audiobook9 hours

    Death at the Chateau Bremont

    Written by M. L. Longworth

    Narrated by Christa Lewis

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When local nobleman Étienne de Bremont falls to his death from the family château, it sets the historic town of Aix-en-Provence abuzz with rumors. Antoine Verlaque, the charming chief magistrate of Aix, suspects foul play, and when he discovers that Bremont had been a close friend of Marine Bonnet, his on-again off-again girlfriend, Verlaque must turn to her for help.

    The once idyllic town suddenly seems filled with people who could have benefited from Bremont's death-including his playboy brother François, who's heavily in debt and mixed up with some unsavory characters. But just as Verlaque and Bonnet are narrowing down their list of suspects, another death occurs. And this time, there can be no doubt-it's murder.

    A lively mystery steeped in the enticing atmosphere of the south of France and seasoned with romance as rich as the French cuisine that inspires it, this first installment of M. L. Longworth's acclaimed Provençal Mystery series is as addictive and captivating as Provence itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 31, 2018
    ISBN9781541443846
    Death at the Chateau Bremont

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    Reviews for Death at the Chateau Bremont

    3.5/5

    118 ratings16 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I liked the descriptions of Provence and of the food. However, although the French pronunciations were correct, the ridiculously affected ‘Allo Allo’ fake English was very annoying.
    • 4/5
      Intriguing story, and I was glad to be immersed in Aix. A small problem: many of the chapters clip words at the end.
    • 4/5
      Good story. The recording cuts off the last word in many of the chapters. That is annoying.
    • 3/5
      Was interesting to look at photos of the mentioned towns in France. The story line was ok and interesting enough to keep reading however the relationship bet the judge and professor was a little annoying for me.
    • 4/5
      A little murder; a little romance
    • 5/5
      I love this series. I looked up Aix en Provence on the internet. Sadly I will probably never see it, but I get a clear picture of the town and the atmosphere from Longworth's books.
    • 3/5
      Antoine Verlaque, a head district judge from the Palais de Justice and favorite colleague Bruno Paulik are investigating the death of Count Étienne de Bremont on the grounds of the bastide (manor house) that has been in the family for generations. The count is best known for his work at the film production company, Souleiado Films in Marseille. The count’s body is discovered by caretaker Jean-Claude Auvieux and he is the only one living on site in a small cottage. As circumstances related to the death are suspicious, Charles and Eric Bley, first cousins of the deceased have requested an inquest.Verlaque loves his food, wine, and cigars with specific preferences for each. At times he seems more interested in them than the investigation or perhaps it should simply be said that he intersperses pursuit of them seamlessly into his daily life during an open investigation. Verlaque’s former girlfriend Marine Bonnet is a law professor at Aix’s university and is first invited to the bastide as a childhood friend of Count Bremont. Verlaque’s personality adds different sparks to his interactions with Marine and the undercurrent reveals more of their past relationship simultaneously guiding their investigative actions.As another of Verlaque’s preferences is "to interview people where they lived, so they’d be more comfortable, but also so he could see their surroundings" the travel between the countryside and cities eases the addition of twists and red herrings simultaneously adding varied cultural activities and interesting atmosphere in the setting changes.It was easy to accept Marine’s participation in the investigation in Book 1. The copyright page indicates "a Verlaque and Bonnet mystery" as the subtitle. This sparks my curiosity to continue reading the series to learn if Marine’s assistance was merely for the opening of the series or if she will continue to become part of future investigations at Velaque’s invitation.
    • 4/5
      Death at the Chateau Bremont is a Verlaque and Bonnet Mystery written by M. L. Longworth. This book is the first title in the series.I discovered this title, this series, after watching several episodes of a tv production entitled Murder in Provence.I really liked and enjoyed the tv series and I really liked and enjoyed this title. (It is the basis for one of the first episodes of the tv series.)The location is glorious - the south of France, particularly in Aix-en-Provence.The characters are very mature, very detailed.The plot is suspenseful and tense. The French police and investigative system is a bit hard to figure out for a foreigner, but I am trying.The book is very, very French and I am in love.*****
    • 4/5
      Let me get the most egregious bit out of the way: the editing was bad. I'd go so far as to say no human being copy-edited this book. Missing words, wrong words (it instead of is or to instead of so), words in the wrong order, and my favourite: "She lingered under the shower, watching the hot water roll over her tummy, which was beginning to protrude a bit, down to her toes." If your stomach is protruding down to your toes, it's probably protruding more than a bit. And finally, I hate the word 'tummy' the same way so many hate 'moist', and it's used a lot in this book. But it was a delightfully great mystery in a more traditional, rather than cozy, style. I had my doubts because frankly, I'd never heard of it or the others in the series and since it was a Penguin publication, I had to wonder why it didn't seem to receive much in the way of marketing love. Verleque is an ass; he comes from great wealth and has grand ideas about food and wine and cigars, while his ex, Bonnet is cheerful and kind and universally loved. The death of Bonnet's old childhood friend brings them back into each others' orbits as Verleque investigates the death and relies on Bonnet's connections and memories to sort out what happened. This is not a book for anyone with a low tolerance of character building; a lot of the book (third person pov) is spent getting to know Verleque and Bonnet as individuals before seeing them work together. What would feel like extraneous filler in other books seems necessary here to make Verleque sympathetic; he's still a bit of an ass, but by the end it seems more understandable, and a great personal secret lurks in the background, presumably to be revealed in a later book. The mystery was really well plotted; so many possible avenues, a killer I didn't see coming and a not entirely neat and tidy ending. And the atmosphere: Aix-en-Provence - what is it about French countryside settings? If you want a good, traditional mystery that spends time creating rich, complex characters, I definitely recommend this - but if you read digitally, maybe check out the ebook version in hopes that the editing debacle has since been corrected.
    • 4/5
      I liked this enough that I intend to continue reading. There were things that I liked a lot, a d other things that didn't work for me. With most mystery series, I like to read two volumes before making up my mind. If the reader isn't already aware, the French legal system differs greatly from Anglo-American. I enjoyed the tour of that area of France. Although Verlaque's description of the doors of the cathedral doesn't match the picture in Wikipedia.I found Verlaque interesting, but certainly not seductive, but there is no accounting for taste. Being a connoisseur of things may be fun for the person, but doesn't strike me as a particular virtue, so I'm probably not as impressed as Longworth would like me to be.I was rather annoyed with what I considered to be a personality transplant in the de Bremont brothers. This is a device that I detest, and can ruin a story for me. Everyone kept talking about how one brother got all the good, and the other got all the bad, but it's a bit baffling how they could have viewed the de Bremont brothers so simplistically. It certainly isn't true by the end.This book is sometimes an example of why spellchecking is not sufficient. Homophones slip through -- the text has "hoard" when I think that "horde" is meant, for example. I'll see how the books go after this.
    • 4/5
      I have been enjoying mystery series set in France lately, and this one caught my eye when I saw that it was set in Aix-en-Provence. It is a contemporary police procedural. The main character is a cigar smoking, bon vivant Judge by the name of Antoine Verlaque. Verlaque has just recently been appointed chief magistrate of Aix in Provence. He is called to the sudden death of a young nobleman in a mostly deserted Chateau Bremont. Etienne Bremont had fallen to his death from an open attic window, and Verlaque is asked to investigate the incident. The more he investigates, the more it appears that there is more to Etienne's death than a mere accident. Verlaque requests assistance from his former girlfriend, Marine Bonnet who is a law professor at a local university. This is a fast-paced, interesting mystery that kept my attention from beginning to end. I loved the setting, and the characters are very real . The south of France is a wonderful place to set a mystery series, and I will certainly be reading more in this series. Bonnet and Verlaque are a very interesting sleuthing pair.
    • 3/5
      It's a delightful visit to the south of France in April, full of Provencal atmosphere. The murder mystery is OK too. It's a good but not spectacular start to a series.
    • 1/5
      Usually I’m generous in reviewing an author’s first novel, because there’s a lot to learn about how best to guide readers down a fictional path, and even a good story can stumble into the Swamp of Difficulty. (And let's face it--I, too, want to have a first book in print some day, and it is unlikely to be without flaws, no matter how hard I try!) However, I expect a book that a publisher—in this case, Penguin—has decided to invest in to be guided out of the murky waters in which this mystery novel flounders.My general concerns are the story's lack of coherence and convincingly drawn, engaging characters. Their dialog seems to be conducted in American slang. Maybe French people speak that way these days. I hope not. In Fiction Writing 101, students are harangued endlessly about maintaining a consistent point of view and warned against dipping in and out of different characters’ consciousnesses, as Longworth does, often from one paragraph to the next. The result is inescapably messy and confusing.I'll confine examples of specific quibbles to one three-page sequence late in the book, in which the author makes three startling mistakes that leave the reader shouting for (or at) the book’s editor, if one there was. In the first, the omniscient narrator announces, “He (Auvieux) had always been frightened of Cosette.” Auvieux and Cosette are two principal characters, why are we being told this important information so late in the game, and why hasn’t it been shown throughout in Auvieux’s behavior? With appropriate signals from Auvieux, the detective would have deduced his fear by now (never mind that we don’t find out whether there is any real basis for it), so that it can be served up to the reader as the character’s insight, not a bald assertion by the narrator.The firearm Auvieux carries is described first as a hunting rifle then as a shotgun—an amazing continuity break for an author of murder mysteries. In this same passage, Auvieux has led the detective to a remote cabin at night. Although the detective has never been there before, he says, “We will [go around and]. . . sneak up on the north side of the cabanon, since that side doesn’t have a window.” Huh? How the heck does he know that?The author, who apparently is charming in person, has produced a number of subsequent mysteries in this series. They have the advantage of a colorful setting—the Aix-en-Provence region of France, where she lives—and her sprightly writing style, but this first one does not make me eager to read another.On her website, Longworth admits she doesn’t read mysteries very often, and it shows. Also she takes a swipe at the genre (and here I admit to being perhaps a little thin-skinned, as my parenthetical editorializing indicates), saying, “I was too shy to begin writing [real!] fiction, so I thought that if I wrote ‘genre’ fiction [the easy stuff!] I would have some boundaries to work with. Every mystery has the same framework: someone dies, there is a murderer, and the hero/heroine looks for that killer.” Creatively and persuasively, one hopes.
    • 2/5
      My husband heard this author on NPR and came home talking about wanting to retire in Aix-en-Provence. The series sounded great to me, not unlike the wonderful Louise Penny books set in the Province of Quebec. Alas, no.Death at the Château Bremont is the series opener and Longworth’s first novel, and perhaps I should be more tolerant of rookie mistakes, but I didn't like this one bit. The author leaned far too heavily on setting to make her book interesting. Yes, who wouldn’t want to visit Provence, but if you’re offering up the mystery genre, you do need to make sure the mystery itself is intriguing. Here, the mystery was simplistic and the detection lackluster. I also did not care for the characters, in particular the snobbish chief magistrate Verlaque. I cared not at all about the rocky romance between him and his professor girlfriend. There is obviously a big back story that explain’s Verlaque’s crummy personality, but I’m not coming back to learn about it.
    • 4/5
      In the lovely area just north of Marseilles is Aix-en-Provence lived two brothers descended from a noble family. One was all the good and the other was all the bad in the family. Étienne was the first to die and he met his end by falling out of an attic window of the Bremont estate that was as familiar to him as his childhood. François, his brother was found murdered in a fountain days later.

      Charismatic Antoine Verlaque is the Chief Investigating magistrate of Aix and he begins to unravel the lives of these siblings. He calls on an old friend of his, a law professor, Marine Bonnet who knew these boys when they were growing up. As is often the case there was still much to be discovered about the lives of these men, their recent pasts and the reality of who was the good, or bad even ugly.

      It seems these days that the influences of the Russian mafia in the Côte d'Azur and the Corsican Mafia in Marseilles have the crime of these areas sewn up and it seems both brothers had fingers getting burnt in dangerous pies.

      There is an excellent sense of place and times in this book. The characters are very well drawn and likable although none are presented without flaws. They seemed all the more real because of them.
    • 3/5
      First Line: The attic light was burnt out.Antoine Verlaque, chief magistrate of Aix-en-Provence, France, is called upon to check into the death of a local nobleman, who fell to his death from an attic window in his château. Although it looks like a simple case of accidental death, Verlaque suspects foul play and asks Marine Bonnet, professor of law at the local university, to help him with his investigation since she grew up with the dead man and his brother.They've barely begun their investigation, however, when the nobleman's brother also dies at the château. This second death is most definitely murder, and the magistrate and the professor must work fast before anyone else can come to harm. What makes the investigation a bit uncomfortable for them both is the fact that-- until six months ago-- Verlaque and Bonnet had been lovers.Author M.L. Longworth moved to Aix-en-Provence in 1997 and began writing articles about the region. After a few years the restrictions of writing non-fiction began to chafe, and she turned to crime fiction. According to her website, her primary aim is to have the reader "experience Aix-en-Provence the way I do, as if they were beside me." Longworth accomplishes that quite well in this book. The countryside, the city of Aix itself, the people and their customs are all extremely well-drawn, and I did feel as though I were there.Unfortunately the author concentrates so much on the land, people and customs that the mystery often appears to take a backseat. The investigation takes a long time to unfold then rushes to its conclusion in the last quarter of the book. It's a shame because the deaths of the two brothers are intriguing, and I would've appreciated a bit more detail before the race to the end.Verlaque and Bonnet are an interesting pair. Marine is the likable one of the two. I enjoyed seeing how her mind works, and even a small habit like saying "Merci, les garçons" each time she passes the war memorial let me know what type of person she is. Verlaque is an entirely different story. Raised by parents who would've loved to buy themselves a title, he's close to neither and only feels real love and affection for his recently deceased English grandmother. Verlaque is handsome, educated, well-traveled, and finds it very easy to seduce women. He's also a terrible snob. Yes, Verlaque is very easy to dislike, but there is a real attraction, even love, between the magistrate and Marine.I enjoyed Death at the Château Bremont for its depiction of life in Aix-en-Provence, and for its mystery. Although I don't care for Antoine Verlaque, a few clues toward the end of the book led me to believe that he may realize that he needs to change a few things about himself to make him worthy of someone like Marine. The second book in the series, Murder in the Rue Dumas, is now available. I may find myself in the south of France again to see what happens next in the relationship of this very interesting pair.