Dollycas's Thoughts
We return to Two Witches Winery in Seneca Lake, New York, right before the big holiday event Deck the Halls Around the Lake. This time pinot noir is the featured wine and someone wants to be sure there is a shortage of this fine vintage. Sabotaged barrels and stolen bottles are making local vintners amp up security and press for answers. Then their wine distributor in murdered. His body is found between Norrie's winery and Don and Theo's winery by her dog. The police try to play it off as a weird hunting accident but Norrie knows that isn't the case. She again teams up with Don and Theo to save their wine and catch the killer.
Book 3 has Norrie's sister and brother-in-law still in Costa Rica hunting down the rare insect but she is in contact with the head of their program in New York much more this time as he can get her into the places she needs to investigate. You see Mr. Arnold Mowen seems to have promised a lot of people he would bequeath all his worldly possessions to them upon his death. It seems someone couldn't wait for that event to happen naturally. Some of those people reside in a place that is having a pest control problem and have called in an expert, Norrie's new friend. Now she needs to find the evidence to tie either these individuals or one of her other suspects to not only the murder but the tampering and stealing of the pricey rare pinot noir.
Norrie continues to impress me, especially when she, Theo and Don mix themselves up in a police investigation. They dig into everything, no matter how far-fetched. Norrie puts herself out there too, where she could get in a lot of trouble. It is so much fun following her around, sometimes in circles to get to the truth.
J. C. Eaton had offset our regular characters this time with some really quirky characters. Lavettia Lawrence, the deceased girlfriend seems to think she has become Norrie's new best friend and Norrie handles it with grace and uses it to her advantage too. But Lavettia is just one in a rather long list of suspects. The mystery had many components and twists too. Arnold's will was crazy, not the craziest I have ever heard of but it was out there. It all leads up to a great reveal.
I have enjoyed all three escapes to the Two Witches Winery. The characters are well rounded and engaging, the location is somewhere I would love to actually visit and as a wine novice, I love learning something in every story. Pinot Red or Dead? was a cleverly written mystery with the perfect amounts intrigue and humor. I loved it and am looking forward to more books in this series.
We return to Two Witches Winery in Seneca Lake, New York, right before the big holiday event Deck the Halls Around the Lake. This time pinot noir is the featured wine and someone wants to be sure there is a shortage of this fine vintage. Sabotaged barrels and stolen bottles are making local vintners amp up security and press for answers. Then their wine distributor in murdered. His body is found between Norrie's winery and Don and Theo's winery by her dog. The police try to play it off as a weird hunting accident but Norrie knows that isn't the case. She again teams up with Don and Theo to save their wine and catch the killer.
Book 3 has Norrie's sister and brother-in-law still in Costa Rica hunting down the rare insect but she is in contact with the head of their program in New York much more this time as he can get her into the places she needs to investigate. You see Mr. Arnold Mowen seems to have promised a lot of people he would bequeath all his worldly possessions to them upon his death. It seems someone couldn't wait for that event to happen naturally. Some of those people reside in a place that is having a pest control problem and have called in an expert, Norrie's new friend. Now she needs to find the evidence to tie either these individuals or one of her other suspects to not only the murder but the tampering and stealing of the pricey rare pinot noir.
Norrie continues to impress me, especially when she, Theo and Don mix themselves up in a police investigation. They dig into everything, no matter how far-fetched. Norrie puts herself out there too, where she could get in a lot of trouble. It is so much fun following her around, sometimes in circles to get to the truth.
J. C. Eaton had offset our regular characters this time with some really quirky characters. Lavettia Lawrence, the deceased girlfriend seems to think she has become Norrie's new best friend and Norrie handles it with grace and uses it to her advantage too. But Lavettia is just one in a rather long list of suspects. The mystery had many components and twists too. Arnold's will was crazy, not the craziest I have ever heard of but it was out there. It all leads up to a great reveal.
I have enjoyed all three escapes to the Two Witches Winery. The characters are well rounded and engaging, the location is somewhere I would love to actually visit and as a wine novice, I love learning something in every story. Pinot Red or Dead? was a cleverly written mystery with the perfect amounts intrigue and humor. I loved it and am looking forward to more books in this series.
Pinot Red or Dead? is the third installment in The Wine Trail Mysteries series set in vineyards of Seneca Lake, New York and featuring Two Witches Winery owner, Norrie Ellington. Christmas season is approaching and Norrie and her neighboring wineries are getting ready for the annual "Deck Halls around the Lake" festivities, a two weekend event where folks can come sample the foods and wines of each location along the Wine Trail.
The community is shocked when a truck transporting cases of wine to retailers is hijacked and all of the Pinot Noir is stolen. Not long after it's discovered that someone is sneaking around the wineries at night and sabotaging the oak barrels that contain Pinot Noir waiting to be bottled. Norrie and the other winery owners begin to think somebody is deliberately trying to cause a shortage of Pinot which will in turn drive the prices sky high, but unfortunately the only one to benefit from a price increase would be their wine distributor.
The morning after the first Deck the Halls event, Norrie's plott hound, Charlie comes in through the doggie door clutching a soggy wallet between his jaws belonging to Arnold Mowen, owner of the Lake-to-Lake Wine distributing company. A brief call to his home reveals that the man had not returned home the previous night and his girlfriend, Lavettia Lawrence begs Norrie to go look for the man and his fancy car. A walk from Two Witches to the neighboring Grey Egret owned by friends Theo and Don, leads Charlie to the discovery of Arnold's body in a roadside ditch. While Deputy Hickman is quick to call the death a hunting accident, Norrie is convinced it was murder and sets out to stamp down a killer.
Quite a few people had a stake in Arnold Mowen and his vast estate and the suspect list of people hoping to inherit is a long one that includes his girlfriend Lavettia, head wine salesman Miller Holtz, Mowen's personal secretary Clayton LeVine and a local cloister of nuns. For some reason Mowen has instructed his attorney to hold the reading of his will at Two Wineries, something Norrie doesn't understand since she'd never met the man, but having all of the suspects in one location should help to flush out the guilty party.
A fun, fast paced plot with well developed and returning characters (and pets) lends to a delightful afternoon read. I just hope the closing chapter does not mean that the author(s) are heading towards the dreadful love triangle with Norrie at the center.
The community is shocked when a truck transporting cases of wine to retailers is hijacked and all of the Pinot Noir is stolen. Not long after it's discovered that someone is sneaking around the wineries at night and sabotaging the oak barrels that contain Pinot Noir waiting to be bottled. Norrie and the other winery owners begin to think somebody is deliberately trying to cause a shortage of Pinot which will in turn drive the prices sky high, but unfortunately the only one to benefit from a price increase would be their wine distributor.
The morning after the first Deck the Halls event, Norrie's plott hound, Charlie comes in through the doggie door clutching a soggy wallet between his jaws belonging to Arnold Mowen, owner of the Lake-to-Lake Wine distributing company. A brief call to his home reveals that the man had not returned home the previous night and his girlfriend, Lavettia Lawrence begs Norrie to go look for the man and his fancy car. A walk from Two Witches to the neighboring Grey Egret owned by friends Theo and Don, leads Charlie to the discovery of Arnold's body in a roadside ditch. While Deputy Hickman is quick to call the death a hunting accident, Norrie is convinced it was murder and sets out to stamp down a killer.
Quite a few people had a stake in Arnold Mowen and his vast estate and the suspect list of people hoping to inherit is a long one that includes his girlfriend Lavettia, head wine salesman Miller Holtz, Mowen's personal secretary Clayton LeVine and a local cloister of nuns. For some reason Mowen has instructed his attorney to hold the reading of his will at Two Wineries, something Norrie doesn't understand since she'd never met the man, but having all of the suspects in one location should help to flush out the guilty party.
A fun, fast paced plot with well developed and returning characters (and pets) lends to a delightful afternoon read. I just hope the closing chapter does not mean that the author(s) are heading towards the dreadful love triangle with Norrie at the center.
