The Sauvignon Secret

June 13, 2011
In Crosby's solid sixth wine country mystery (after 2010's Viognier Vendetta), the apparent suicide of Paul Noble, a wine importer and distributor with lots of enemies, takes Virginia vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery to the vineyards of California's Napa and Sonoma valleys in search of answers. Lucie and her former lover, winemaker Quinn Santori, dig through the past of a group of young biochemists from the Nixon era, who called themselves the Mandrake Society. Noble's death turns out not to be the only mysterious one connected to the society, but it may hold the key to a coverup, a murder, and a determined killer. Meanwhile, Lucie and Quinn must deal with the question of their own future. Can they mend their strained relationship? While the element of intrigue falls a bit flat, wine aficionados and those fond of the San Francisco Bay Area will be well rewarded.

June 15, 2011

Virginia wine grower Lucie Montgomery becomes involved in yet another murder.

When Lucie goes to visit wine merchant Paul Noble to talk about getting a better price for her wine, Paul has nothing to say because he's hanging from a beam with a bottle of Lucie's wine and an unusual glass at his feet. Dinner at the house of Charles and Juliette Theissman, old friends of Lucie's newly arrived French grandfather, involves her in an investigation of Charles' mysterious past, including Cold War research on human subjects. A small group known as the Mandrake Society, whose members included Paul Noble, was involved, and now they're dying one by one. Charles asks Lucie to check out the former owner of Rose Hill Vineyard in California to see if he was a Mandrake member now using a false name. Lucie, who's going to California anyway to visit Rose Hill and taste some wine her former lover Mick Dunne plans to buy and perhaps see her winemaker and sometime lover Quinn Santori, reluctantly agrees. Quinn treats her to a romantic whirlwind tour of San Francisco, Sonoma and the Napa Valley while they join forces to investigate the past. Their relationship is fraught with tension and danger lurks.

To her string of Wine Country cases (The Viognier Vendetta, 2010, etc.), Crosby adds another well-conceived mystery and the latest dispatches concerning Lucie's troubled love life.

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July 1, 2011

Virginia's favorite vintner-detective (The Viognier Vendetta) ventures out to California's Napa Valley when her grandfather makes a request.

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