Noble Rot

Harriss, who won an Edgar Award for The Bay Psalm Book Murder , has given his third mystery the perfect title and metaphor for its breezy narrative about shady doings in California's Napa Valley. Just as the benign fungus Botrytis cinerea (``noble rot'') invades the grapes of Chateau Letessier, so deception, sabotage and revenge infest the vineyard's tenants and neighbors. Bankrupt bon vivant Vinnie Letessier returns to his Uncle Francis's troubled business, only to find a corpse in the cabernet sauvignon fermentation tank; shortly thereafter, Francis dies in a suspicious car fire. Among the suspects pursued by Vinnie and Det. Holly Shelton: his uncle's money-grubbing ex-wife Adrienne; her paramour George Preston, formerly the Chateau's resident manager; Francis's niece Delphine and her husband, Bert Craven, who stand to inherit if Vinnie dies; and Andy Lacroix, a shady member of the Napa Valley Board of Supervisors. Holly and Vinnie have romantic interludes with, respectively, the Chateau's foreman and a custom-tile designer, then uncover a land-development scheme that involves a local loan officer and a Bible-thumping gas station attendant. Most readers will be entertained by the book's effervescent banter, clever clues and ingenious modus operandi . ( Apr. )