LE BUGUE, France — As the police chief of the sleepy fictional town of St.-Denis in the Périgord region of southwestern France, Bruno Courrèges has battled murderers and arsonists, truffle fraud and archaeological vandalism, drug pushers and terrorists.

Yet, in 10 novels written by the British journalist Martin Walker, Bruno’s real enemies have not been the conventional wrongdoers so much as the high-minded bureaucrats who threaten a way of life that for centuries has made this corner of France one of the more pleasant, genial places on earth to call home.

Not surprisingly, given the priorities here, where the St.-Denis tennis club is tricked out with a well-appointed kitchen “since no communal activity could take place without there being food and wine involved,” many of the battles between local tradition and globalization play out over issues of gastronomy.

Like Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano novels, set in a Sicilian seaport, Mr. Walker’s books are rich in atmosphere and personality, with characters bound by the tenacious strictures of history and memory. And almost without fail, everything stops for lunch. It’s impossible to read a Bruno novel without getting hungry and thirsty.