Red-handed in Romanée-Conti

Excellent!

enjoyed it.
good read.
will get many copies for family and friends.
thanks

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen have created a story of love and jealousy and blackmail while fighting the farmers weather. They start out with Benjamin's father in England who has fallen in love with his healthcare worker. Elisabeth saves the day by teaching him to interact with others by computers and i-phones. Benjamin and Virgile have to end up at a clients grape harvest and run into a murder of a young woman. The weather hampers them by hailing and almost wrecks the harvest. This story makes you go from feeling good to the opposite and its complicated with action. I recommend it for my group.

Another outing for Benjamin Cooker and his assistant, Virgile Lannsien, this time in Burgundy. The tried and tested formula is employed to good effect as Benjamin and Virgil's manage to solve a murder despite copious consumption of top of the range Burgundies and gourmet meals. The writing is consistently good and in this novel Mrs Cooker gets a lot more time devoted to her and it was nice to see her character fleshed out.
As usual details of the crime are somewhat perfunctory as is the solution but, as ever, the real delight is in the description of the food and, especially, the wine. I certainly learnt a lot about Burgundy wines. Another fine effort in this hugely enjoyable series.

While Benjamin and his wife Elizabeth are in London visiting Benjamin's elderly father, he is called to the Burgundy region of France. He and his assistant Virgile are needed at the Lemoine estate for the wine harvest. Not long after their arrival, the body of a female worker is found on a neighboring estate. Things get tricky when the police find some of her belongings in Benjamin's rental car. Luckily he has an alibi for the time of the murder. He and Virgile join forces with Police Inspector Cluzel to try and find the murderer and the motives behind it.

Once again the authors of this series have presented readers with another winning cozy mystery full of interesting characters, great scenery and good food and wine. I love the fact that this story was really two in one, with Benjamin's father in London and Benjamin's wine mystery in Burgundy. It was also nice that Elizabeth had a larger role to play in this story as well. I hope the writers never get tired of creating new mysteries for Benjamin and Virgile to solve, because I for one, never tire of reading them.

Another winner in this marvelous series set in the wine-making world. Another vineyard, another murder to solve. Personally, if I was a vintner, I wouldn't hire Benjamin Cooker...
I found this book especially interesting reading about how weather affects a vintage and how the winemakers cope to save the harvest. Also, for the first time in the series, it delves into Cooker's relationship with his father, so a little more insight into his personal life.
As usual, the reader is transported to France, wishing they were seated with the characters in a 4-star restaurant savoring a luscious meal followed by a good cigar...with great bottles of wines, of course!
P.S. spoiler alert - they solve the murder, too!

This is the first time that we meet Benjamin's (Benji) father Paul, as both Benjamin and Elizabeth are in London on one of the rare visits over. Benjamin's brother and sister are, once again, nowhere to be seen, and it is therefore just the two of them who get to hear the news - he's getting married again, this time to his nurse!

The following morning sees Benjamin get an emergency call to return to France and the Lemoine estate in particular - the weather is predicted to be horrendous, with torrential rain and hailstorms, all at the most critical time of the harvest for a region brimming with Grand and Premier cru estates.

Elizabeth stays behind with her father in law and we get to see more of Elizabeth in this book, as it turns out Paul has been taken for a ride and has dumped by his fiancee. Over the course of the book, we have Elizabeth dealing with an old man with failing health, who realises he has been foolish and is in fact lonely and has lost many of his friends - a suddenly decided on car trip to France is soon knocked on the head and replaced with connecting him to the internet - a task he easily takes to (but which Benjamin is not impressed with).

Meanwhile, back in France, the area is trying to pull in the harvest before the predicted storms, and we get to see the difference between the traditional and the modern ways of sorting grapes....the traditional may be slower, but the modern way depends on whether it's actually up and running in time to deal with unexpected events!

There is tension across the estates, as not all grapes have been brought in before the hail storms begin. Things are made worse when the naked body of one of the temp woorkers (Clotilde) is found up on the grounds of the local Abbey, and someone has tried to frame Benjamin by leaving her underwear in his car. It takes some less than discreet coversations with the local police for them to drop investigation Benjamin, but tensions continue, specifically on the Lemoine estate, where Marcel the father, Rafael the son, and one of the lead estate workers Philippine as there seems to be some undercurrent as to who knew Clotilde and what if anything they had to do with her death.

It soon gets sorted out, with the denoument had at the dinner held for the end of the harvest and Benjamine's relationship with the Limone estate is almost back on track.

Whilst I did enjoy the book, and there was a decent amount of information about the wine of the region and the specific estates, it was presented in a very dry manner in a short, dense section of the book and it did seem like I was reading a text book. The rest of the story was done with a light touch, especially when it comes to Benjamin's family and I'm wondering if the two authors could balance up their writing a little.

Benjamin Cooker was set to spend some time with his wife and father in London. It’s bad timing as the grape harvest is due to be picked and the Lemoine family needs his advice on the picking schedule. As Cooker and his assistant, Virgile make their way to the vineyard they pass a site being cordoned off by a young police officer. When the Winemaker Detective instructs his assistant to pull over, they are informed a body has been discovered and are strongly advised to return to their car. More daunting that a body in the vines, clouds are collecting on the horizon that promises a grape damaging thunder storm. Alaux weaves a mystery within his delectable descriptions of wine. I would strongly advise reading this series at an acceptable time for having a glass of wine at hand. It didn’t matter that it was ten o’clock in the morning, I wanted a glass of wine. This is my first taste of the Winemaker Detective series but I can assure you I will be looking for more.

I must confess, I have been to the region covered in this installment and it was a major influence of this title for me. It was so much fun to recognize the names of the towns that I have visited and could easily visualize the countryside.

I want to thank the publishers for generously providing this title through NetGalley and Edelweiss for my honest review.

ISBN: 9781939474650 Pub: Le French Book Book BD: 11/15/2016

As a lover of cozy's, this was a really fun read that ties in food, wine and France! The characters are well developed and added to the story line that will take the reader on a journey that is light and engaging. Great book club read for those who love food, wine and travel.

Princess Fuzzypants here:
As a cat, I do not drink wine. My family does and I have enjoyed this series because it helps me understand different French wines and wine regions. It doesn't make me want to drink wine but my Momma says it has that effect on her. *Sigh*
This time Benjamin is confronted with hostility both natural and human. He is in Burgundy to help with the harvest. As an outsider from a competing region, he is held in suspicion by many. When he becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of a young wine employee, he raises many a local hackle.
He must also contend with stresses coming from his father, back in London. Luckily, his wife, Elizabeth is able to assist and help bring his father through a trying and emotional time. His assistant in Burgundy is his associate, Virgile, with whose help he is able to sort through both damaged grapes and damaged people.
Some of these books spend much time on the ambience of the area and the wines of the region highlighted. This one is still a travelogue that entices the reader to want to visit but the murder does take an equally important role in the story as the storms that threaten to wipe out the crop. Because there is so much emphasis on location, a mystery purist may find the detail distracting. I find it charming. But I still have no desire to sample wines.
I give it five purrs and two paws up.

Another good story in the Winemaker series. I enjoyed reading it, everything from the details about wine and food (and even cigars), to the murder mystery. The introduction of Benjamin's father was a fresh addition as he proved to be a very interesting character and I loved the relationship between him and Elizabeth. The only thing that bothered me was how, at the beginning, Benjamin and Virgil discuss how there are more and more females in the winemaking business and how that is a good thing, but in the end, it turned out the only female character was the murderer. It sort of negated the good intentions at the beginning of the novel of painting winemaking as an equal opportunities business.