Blood Vines

The opening scene begins with doctoral student Alexandra Clarkson having a scary flashback. Orlagh Cassidy hooks listeners as she reflects the heroine's anxiety and her typical response--pushing the images aside and moving on. As the story proceeds, Alex's secretive mother is found dead, her haunting images increase, and she learns she has a family and a history that have been hidden from her for 25 years. Cassidy convinces us of Alex's increasing confusion and desperation to understand her past. Likewise, Cassidy makes credible the heroine's discovery that she's the stepdaughter of a prominent Sonoma vintner as well as her romantic involvement with police detective Daniel Reed. Cassidy's narration mirrors the emotions of the main character so well that listeners become solidly engaged with her story. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

January 18, 2010
Bestseller Spindler's underwhelming stand-alone stars Alexandra Clarkson, a doctoral student finishing her thesis in human belief systems, who was raised in San Francisco by her unstable mother, Patsy, not knowing who her father was. When Patsy is found dead, Alexandra questions whether it was by her own hand or if it's linked to a years-old crime in nearby Sonoma County—the apparent kidnapping of baby Dylan Sommer, the son of Harlan Sommer, of the Sommer family wine dynasty, and, as Alex discovers, Harlan's then wife, her mother, Patsy. Keen to find out her father's identity, Alex relocates to wine country, where she learns about the repressed first five years of her own life. Despite the happy family reunion, not everyone is pleased with Alex's return to the area, so Spindler (Breakneck
) stirs the pot with a few instances of ritual sacrifice and not-so-coincidental deaths. In the end, a tidy resolution substitutes for the mouth-dropping revelation many thriller fans will expect.

May 3, 2010
When her bipolar mom dies from an overdose of meds, Alex Clarkson discovers the old gal has been hoarding family secrets, mainly a marriage to a member of a Sonoma Valley winemaking dynasty. Alex, a San Francisco bartender working on her doctoral thesis in human belief systems, puts her life on hold and rushes to wine country to meet the family she’s never known she had and on the way reconnecting with a childhood friend now a handsome local. Orlagh Cassidy does her best, but the material, including some melodrama, a murder or three, sexual depravity, and even ritual sacrifice among the grapes, is a bit too listless for even a spirited rendition to help. A St. Martin’s hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 18).