Grand Cru Heist: Review and Giveaway

Benjamin Cooker is a wine critic, probably a dream profession for many. Imagine spending everyday of your life tasting all those vintage wines and writing notes on them. If that sounds less appealing, he also gets to play amateur detective giving helpful pointers to the police to solve crimes.

In the second instalment of the Winemaker Detective series, Cooker gets mugged and his car is stolen. His precious notebook with notes on vintage wines is also lost with the car. A woman is murdered and a man allegedly commits suicide in the place where Cooker goes to convalesce after the mugging. Cases of Vintage wine from a small vineyard are stolen and cryptic messages left for the vintner.

Drink had often been blamed for many a crime. Given the number of crimes committed for the Grand Cru you know it is not wrongly blamed.

This is a short cozy novel. Cooker spends his time smoking Havana cigars, drinking vintage wines, entertaining people with his special collection of wines and the crimes get solved on its own, though Benjamin prides on solving them. This book has the same feel as the first one, Treachery in Bordeaux, with a leisurely pace and a small dose of wit and wisdom. I would have liked it better if there were less coincidences and Cooker really does some sleuthing. When the real world is hectic with all that running around it is nice to escape into a holiday with vintage wines.

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SYNOPSIS

After Treachery in Bordeaux, here is another Epicurean whodunit in French wine country. Immerse yourself in French countryside and gourmet attitude with our wine-loving amateur sleuths. This time they gumshoe around the Loire Valley before heading back to Bordeaux.

One winter day in Paris, renowned wine critic Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down when his car gets highjacked. He loses his treasured tasting notebook and his feeling of safety. To recover, he retreats to the region around Tours, sure that the wine and off-season calm will restore is sense of self. There a flamboyant British dandy, a spectacular blue-eyed blond, a zealous concierge and touchy local police disturb his well-deserved rest. From the Loire Valley to Bordeaux, in between a glass of Vouvray and a bottle of Saint-Émilion, the Winemaker Detective and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and very peculiar heist. Who stole those bottles of grand cru classé? Take this Epicurean journey through France to solve the whodunit. [provided by the publisher]

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E-Release date: Jan 30, 2014 by Le French Book

150 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1939474087

p-release: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1939474049

Author’s website | Goodreads

Buying Links:
Kindle link: http://amzn.to/1ctJ8Jm

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

©David Nakache 

Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover and recently won the Antonin Carême prize for his cookbook La Truffe sur le Soufflé, which he wrote with the chef Alexis Pélissou. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective series, which he coauthors with Noël Balen. Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music. He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

The translator, Anne Trager loves France so much she has lived there for over a half a century and just can’t seem to leave. What keeps her there is a uniquely French mix of pleasure seeking and creativity. Well, that and the wine. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction, mysteries and detective novels.

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Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own. Giveaway is sponsored by France Book Tours.

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