Winemaker Detective Mysteries: An Omnibus

Excellent! Think I've read most of the series to date.

I was really delighted to get my hands on this omnibus as it takes me to the beginning of the winemaker series. We have three quick short reads. Treachery in Bordeaux involves wine being sabotaged and Benjamin and Virgile go on the trail. Grand Cru Heist has murders and the theft of rare wine. Nightmare in Burgundy has homes with graffiti inside in villages in Burgundy. The graffiti consists of biblical verses, all of which needs to be investigated! I loved all the stories for their quirkiness, intrigue, information on the regions and the local culture. Many thanks to Le French Books for a copy of the book via netgalley.

The Winemaker Detective Mysteries are new to me. The three books were quick reads and I was happy to get involved in the adventures of Benjamin Cooker, a wine expert and his new assistant, Virgile. There was a LOT of French wine information in the book, but it didn't slow down my enjoyment of the story.

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For the book: Winemaker Detective Mysteries: An Omnibus by Jean-Pierre Alaux, Noël Balen

One of my favorite series, the Winemaker Detective Mysteries is set in France and takes readers to the wine country. You learn about wine and a little bit of French history. And best of all, the protagonists. master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile Lanssien are lovable and relatable.

Description

Haven't yet discovered the "addictive" Winemaker Detective series? Here's your chance with the first three mysteries. Master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile Lanssien solve mysteries in French wine country with a dose of Epicurean enjoyment of fine food and beverage. Each story is a homage to wine and winemakers as well as a mystery. In Treachery in Bordeaux, barrels at the prestigious grand cru Moniales Haut-Brion wine estate in Bordeaux have been contaminated. Is it negligence or sabotage? In Grand Cru Heist, Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down one night in Paris. He retreats to the region around Tours to recover. He and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and very particular heist. In Nightmare in Burgundy, a dream wine tasting trip to Burgundy that turns into a troubling nightmare when Cooker and his assistant stumble upon a mystery revolving around messages from another era. This made-for-TV series is "difficult to forget and oddly addictive" (ForeWord Reviews).

This is actually three books, the first three in the Winemaker Detective Series. Although I have read most of the later books, I particularly enjoyed these three. Each book is a complete mystery story, including detailed descriptions and information about the French countryside, winemaking, and local legends. I really haven't found any books to be more enjoyable. The characters include many strange and wonderful people, and the information on French wines and winemaking is superb. If you haven't read any of the other books in this series, this is a good place to start. Even if you have already met Benjamin Cooker and Virgule, you will appreciate the story of their beginnings. These books will make you want to visit the French wine regions.

What a delightful trio of novellas...the first stories of a series I will definitely be reading. Even as a non-drinker, I thoroughly enjoyed this "vacation", quirky characters, good food and a trip through France, what's not to love? Highly recommended.

3 good mysteries! I like the new assistant! The mysteries were entertaining with good endings. I am not a big wine drinker but all the talk of various wines did make me thirsty to try some new ones. I like that the mysteries appear in the course of the winemaker handling his normal duties. I enjoyed the books.

French Wine, Gourmet Meals, and Mysteries

Benjamin Cooker, famous vintner and author of the Cooker Guide, which describes the wines of various regions in France, is also an amateur detective. Mysteries just seem to fall in his path as he pursues his work of wine tasting and consulting with the estates about problems with wine. His young assistant, Vergile, participates in solving the mysteries and tasting wine, His wife, although in the background, adds a domestic touch to the series.

The Winemaker Detective consists of three novellas. In the first, Benjamin is faced with a yeast infection that threatens to ruin a friends vintage. In the second, the theft of a most of an available vintage leads to murder and a more typical mystery. In the third, Benjamin has been inducted into a famous wine society, the Tulips. While there he finds the townsfolk upset by passages written on buildings and again murder crops up.

The best part of these books is the description of wine and gourmet meals. The wine growing regions of France form the background for the series and are lovingly described. It makes you want to visit and taste the delicacies of each area. The mysteries are interesting, particularly when, like the first novella, the focus is on wine-making.

The mysteries themselves, particularly the first one, rely heavily on coincidence for a solution. This makes it difficult to identify the culprit until the very end. Although not typical mysteries, the books have enough interesting detail about French wine and the regions where the grapes are grown that I didn't miss the search for clues.

If you enjoy wine and food and aren't too anxious for a traditional detective story, you'll enjoy these books.

I received this book from Net Galley for this review.

These are a very entertaining read; a wine expert and his assistant solve wine based crimes.

I thought stupidly I would find there stories I had already read, in the books previously translated by le French Book. I did not realize it was three different books, and I had to open them after more than a month to finally understand.
The first one is great. First, because it shows the first meeting between Cooker and Virgile, their first wine tastings together, where Virgile is a bit ill at ease in front of the great master, who teases him badly (with the cherry pits flavor). The mystery is rather interesting, too. How come so many old castles in or around Bordeaux have been damaged, even destroyed to create suburban condos for rich Bordelais? When a good friend of Benjamin has one tenth of his harvest damaged by micro organisms which should not be there, Cooker will dedicate his energy and the scientific power of his lab, controlled by Alexandrine to solve the question. Enjoyable, funny, and all is well that ends well. This one is worth a 5, no doubt.

The second book relies on a complex story. Cooper is attacked while rolling in his beloved car, his convertible Mercedes 280SL. A guy looks at him as of asking for a light while his accomplice armed with a knife threaten Benjamin, hits him and steal car, notes,and luggage. Cooper is hospitalized . and decides after a few days he needs some time to recuperate in a (great) hotel in the Val de Loire. His convalescence will give him the opportunity to learn more about those wines and the hotel he has picked up has an amazing wine cellar.
Virgile is holding the fort and Benjamin is alone, and happy to be by himself. He meets a guy with his dream car, spends a day with him, which prompts his girl friend to leave Benjamin's new friend.
From there, you have a succession of horrible and improbable events, too awful for this series. One thing is sure, a 17-years old should not be involved with a 55 tp 60 year old man. And they will all pay the price.. thought the book interesting, but much darker than the usual ones. A 4?. J believe most 12 years old would be scared by the story.
The third book -or novella is hard to understand. It deals with a feast of taste winers in Burgundy -my favorite wines. A group of wine lovers meet, note various wines, give a few speeches, have fun, normally. But this time Cooper meets an old friend of him who is a monk, has dreams of being in Palestine around the crucifixion of Jesus and finds dead bodies again, with threats attached to the corpses or written on the barriers or walls around What is symbolic, what wants to be true?

It is fascinating to discover some early texts from the authors. Because they must have searched before they found their voice, it goves you opportunuities to discover their other ways of writing.
I'll post tomorrow on goodreads, amazon, and barnes and nobl

This omnibus is made up of three mysteries in the Winemaker detective series. If you love France, enjoy wine and a good mystery (these are not thrillers but good old fashioned who done its), you will love this series. The main characters evolve throughout the series and you get to know them and their families. The winemaker himself travels all over France so one gets a wonderful geography lesson not only of France but of the different varieties of grape grown in each separate region. None of these mysteries are too long. You can cozy up to a nice fire with a good glass of wine and have yourself a lovely evening.

The Winemaker Detective: An Omnibus introduces a master winemaker and his assistant, an unlikely pair of detectives, in an amusing series that shines like a rich Bordeaux with a style that could be called continental cosy.
Benjamin Cooker, the French-English master winemaker, and his assistant, the virile Virgile, manage to solve murder as well as mayhem in the world of wine. The three novellas – Treachery in Bordeaux, Grand Cru Heist and Nightmare in Burgundy – each combine a satisfying mystery with an ample serving of French culture and especially French viniculture.
For some, the stories may start a bit slow . . . more like traditional British mysteries of a bygone era. I didn’t mind. For others, the technical details may be distracting. Again, I didn’t mind – I quite enjoyed learning more about wines, vineyards and vintages, and other aspects of French culture and the French countryside. I’m no oenophile – I’ve been known to drink pink wine out of a box and to purchase bottles with screwcaps – but such a background is happily not needed. Especially with an e-reader, which makes it easy to take a brief detour into the exact definition of grand cru or Haut-Brion without losing the threads of the story or stories.
Indeed, one of the pleasures of the series is learning more about the French countryside in general and the wine regions in particular – a vacation in a volume (or two, or three).
The contrast of Cooker, a man of integrity as well as a man of faith, with his assistant, Virgile, an agnostic and a bit of a lady’s man, lends strength to the series. But, readers should take warning that the series isn’t strictly cosy: The stories include a spattering of vulgar language and one explicit (but by no means pornographic) sexual scene – fairly tame in both respects. That’s why I called it continental cosy. (And, yes, given the setting, I’m opting for the English spelling here.)

This installment of the Winemaker Detective series does not disappoint. I enjoyed the 3 shorter than usual mysteries that were all fun to read as stand alone stories. It was however nice that they all pulled together with just enough to overlap to give, you as the reader, a familiar sense and a bit of "inside information". This is a great book to keep with you for short bits of time you can snatch for a bit of a reading escape.