Bordeaux: The Bitter Finish: A Vengeance in the Vineyard Mystery

In Hubbard’s intricately plotted second Vineyard mystery (after 2012’s Champagne: The Farewell), Det. Max Maguire of the NYPD accompanies American wine critic Ellen Jordan to Bordeaux, where Ellen asks Max to guard one of four magnums of wine, each potentially worth over $30,000. Ellen thinks these wines may be counterfeit; auctioneer Paula Goodwin claims that they are authentic. Experts are to test the wines’ bona fides at the annual tasting of regional wines in the village of Lussac. Soon after Max and Ellen arrive at their hotel, Ellen is found asphyxiated in her room and the wine Max was guarding disappears from the hotel safe. Max, whose intuition tells her Ellen’s death was murder, joins French magistrate Olivier Chaumont, a past lover of hers, in the subsequent investigation. In the course of interviews with numerous suspects on both sides of the Atlantic, readers will have great fun learning about the wine industry. (Apr.)