Pinot Red or Dead? by J.C. Eaton is the third book of the cozy The Wine Trail Mysteries series. While there is some character development that carries over from book to book each book in the series has it’s own murder mystery to solve so they can be read as a standalone if choosing to do so.

This series began with Norrie Ellington having been asked to return home to upstate New York by her sister to oversee the family business, Two Witches Winery. Norrie’s sister and her brother in law had been given a grant to study a species of insect in Costa Rica for a next year and while Norrie had made her life in New York City she would be able to continue her job as a successful screenwriter anywhere.

Who knew however that returning home to the winery would bring Norrie face to face with so many murders in their normally quiet area though. Now after solving a couple of previous cases Norrie immediately begins investigating when things begin happening with the pinot at Two Witches Winery and the surrounding vineyards.

The husband and wife writing team that make up J.C. Eaton have quickly become one of my favorite cozy authors. The Wine Trail Mysteries is one of two ongoing series from this duo and one that I get excited with each installment as I know it will be a fun read. These are full of humorous moments with plenty of suspects and twists and turns to the mystery to keep the pages turning quickly.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Pinot Red or Dead is a delightful mystery that will entertain you. It is the third in the series and won't disappoint you. Wonderful characters and a good plot.

The 3rd installment in the Wine Trail mysteries. Norrie Ellington is a silent partner with her sister in Two Witches Winery in Seneca Lake New York. Her sister is still on sabbatical while she is traveling in Costa Rica with her husband. Norrie is a screenwriter by trade and is doing the best she can while her sister and brother in law are away. The winery is getting ready for the holidays and the annual “Deck the Halls around the Lake” event. A truck with Pinot is hijacked and then a number of wineries experience sabotage on their Pinot. Then Arnold Mowen owner of a wine distributor is found dead between Norrie’s winery and another winery it is deemed a hunting accident but Norrie is not so sure. Norrie begins investigating and oddly enough the reading of the dead’s man will is at Two Witches. This was an engaging and fast paced mystery and look forward to the next in the series.

What's wrong with Pinot Noir? Why doesn't someone want it made in Seneca Lake and who is that person? If you haven't read this series before, meet Norrie, a screenwriter who is currently overseeing her family's vineyard and investigating murders in the region. Arnold Morwen, a distributor, is a creep. When Norrie's plothound comes home with a wallet, Norrie goes out and finds him dead on a stretch of property that abuts hers. There are multiple suspects and while you might guess the guilty party, this is a fun read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A classic cozy set in a beautiful area.

This is an engaging and entertaining addition to a delightful series. Wine hijacking and corrupting, murder, romance, insects, and so much more. It will keep you guessing. Suspected some things, but others were a surprise. Clever mystery.

Wine hijacking, murder and mystery lead Two Witches Winery owner Norrie Ellington on a search for a killer. In Pinot Red of Dead? It's "Deck the Halls Around the Lake" time and all the wineries surrounding Seneca Lake are involved when a wine hijacking takes place. Forty cases of Pinot Noir were stolen and that worries Norrie. When the wineries on her side of the lake experience vandalism and spoiled wine, she knows she need to get involved.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read this book!

Oh, I liked this one! that twisty ending really got me, because I wasn't sure what was happening the entire time and I loved that! Who would have saw that coming? Not me.

I really love that Norrie is still floundering on, trying to make sense of the life she's now living. She's starting to learn more about the wine making business, although it will never be her first love. I don't know how this series can keep going for much longer though, we'll have to see exactly how many dead bodies she can find haha.

This one is a solid mystery with a host of delightful characters (My personal favorite is Godfrey ;) hehe) a great mystery, five stars.

Even though Norrie's sleuthing methods and crazy plans started to annoy me towards the end, the twist at the end and the craziness made it more tolerable. Still very enjoyable book with all the twists and turns.

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.

I received an advanced copy of Pinot Red or Dead from Lyrical Underground Press, a division of Kensington Publishing via NetGalley. While not required to write a review I am more than happy to offer my honest opinion.

his is fun addition to The Wine Trail Mysteries. Norrie Ellington, screenwriter and normally silent partner with her sister in Two Witches Winery, is still staying in Seneca Lake and overseeing the winery while her sister and entomologist husband are off studying an insect in Costa Rica. After being involved in a couple of murder investigations, Norrie is ready for some screenwriting, but the holiday season with its' festivities is already taking up her time when disturbing events surrounding local wineries begin to happen. First, the local distributer's truck is robbed of the wine it is carrying from several wineries. Then, other wineries, including Two Witches, have incidents of a particular wine being sabotaged. If this isn't enough, Norrie finds the distributer's owner dead between her property and the adjacent winery. She can't leave it up to the local authorities to uncover the truth, so she begins her own investigation. As Norrie sifts through the clues to find the culprit, she has to make sure she isn't the next victim.

I thought the mystery in this one was clever. There were several good suspects, and I wasn't able to predict the outcome. Good characters and an entertaining mystery made this a fun book to read. I'm a stickler for reading series in order, but if you aren't, there's nothing that would keep this one from being enjoyable on it's own. Enough background is given to understand the characters and setting.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

The third book in the Wind Trail mysteries is an excellent addition to the series. Norrie Ellington is setting up the Two Witches Winery for the annual Deck The Hall Christmas Festival schedule for the weekend. She learns of a hijacked truck. The robberies took only the Pinot noir. The next day the vat of Pinot at the winery is damaged. The other wineries also have experienced damage to the Pinot supplies making the Wind hard to find and allowing a higher price and demand for the wine.
A body is found at the edge of Two Witches and Grey Egret properties. The sheriff office feels it is a hunting accident. The story has several twists and turns and there are red herrings before the answer is determined. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK AND SERIES.

Disclosure: Thanks to Lyrical Underground for a copy through NetGalley. The opinions expressed are my own.

Thank you to net galley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book it was a great experience first time reading anything from this author


As the vineyards in Seneca Lake, New York, prepare for the seasonal “Deck the Halls Around the Lake” festivities, someone is determined to keep pinot noir off the wine list. Hijacked trucks and sabotaged ingredients have made it a hard-to-acquire vintage for the six local wineries—including Norrie Ellington’s Two Witches Winery.

Pinot Red or Dead? Is the third book in J.C. Eaton’s (the husband and wife writing team of Ann I. Goldfarb and James E. Clapp) The Wine Trail Mysteries series. The story flows smoothly with a steadily paced plot, twists and turns, and a well-developed cast of characters. This is a quick and easy read with an interesting mystery, lots of red herrings, and humor. The reveal was surprising.

Norrie Ellington is a successful screenwriter and silent partner in Two Witches Winery, her family’s winery on Seneca Lake in Penn Yan, New York. Her older sister and brother-in-law, Francine and Jason Keane, are spending a year in Costa Rica while Jason researches a bug and Francine asked Norrie to temporarily move to the winery and oversee operations. Norrie reluctantly agreed since she can write anywhere and the winery’s staff is experienced. Even though it’s before Thanksgiving, the local wineries are gearing up for the annual ‘Deck the Halls around the Lake’ event. Everyone is up in arms when a truck belonging to Lake-to-Lake Wine Distributors is hijacked on the east side of the lake and cases of red wine are stolen; then Two Witches Winery’s winemakers discover their oak-aged Pinot Noir was tampered with, and Theo Buchman and his life partner, Don, who own the Grey Egret, were hit too. Madeline Martinez, the owner of Billsburrow Winery, reports someone drained the Pinot Noir from their oak barrel, and two wineries on the upper end of the lake had their Pinot Noir barrels sabotaged. On the second day of the ‘Deck the Halls around the Lake’ festivities, Norrie finds Arnold Mowen’s body face down in the snow in a ditch between Two Witches and the Grey Egret. Since Norrie helped solve murders before, no one is surprised when she starts investigating and throwing out random theories. With multiple people believing they would inherit Arnold Mowen’s business, Lake-to-Lake Wine Distributors, and disgruntled customers, there’s no shortage of suspects.

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

Norrie Ellington and the gang are back! It’s the holiday season in Seneca Lake, NY and the wineries are busy. While Norrie and the team in the tasting room are busy preparing for the seasonal festivities, the wine makers are around the valley are dealing with wine that has been lost. From some wine being hijacked from their distributors truck, to some wine being stolen from the vineyard storage rooms, to wine in the barrels being tainted, something crazy is going on. But things get even crazier when the regional wine distributor turns up dead.

No surprise that Norrie gets her Nancy Drew card out and is investigating. Who’s gunning for the wineries and trying to raise the prices of red wine? Who killed the distributor? Can Norrie and the gang figure it out before their number is up? Chaos and hilarity ensues!

Love this series and this is the best book to date! I’m hoping Norrie’s sister and husband never come back to run the winery!!!!

Serious love the name Two Witches” ! Fun series with great wine and wonderful characters that feel like old friends and a bit of quirkiness thrown in for good measure. A. Err interesting storyline between the Lake to Lake holiday event and the missing, destroyed wine. I’m not a drinker, but I really enjoy this series.

This is an enjoyable, fast paced mystery with a great sense of humor combining good friends, good food, excellent wines and a compelling plot featuring wine sabotage and murder along with an inside look at life at a wine vineyard. Norrie Ellington is a screen writer who is also the silent partner in a vineyard in upstate New York along with her sister who runs the place. When Norrie's brother in law is offered a sabbatical job opportunity in Costa Rica Norrie agrees to run the vineyard while they are away, but does not expect to be caught up in murder investigations. During the time of the Deck the Halls holiday festival wine trail event , cases of pinot noir are hijacked from a truck belonging to the Lake to Lake distributors, the wine distributor for all of the wineries in the Finger Lakes. Before the police can find the culprits other wineries have their pinot noir vats sabotaged and then things escalate when Arnold Mowen, the owner of Lake to Lake is found murdered near Norrie's property. Once again she proves she is up to the task of investigating and solving the crimes. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and hope to see more of Norrie in the future.