The Merlot Murders

Making a go of the family's Virginia vineyard after her father's death (in The Merlot Murders, 2006) would be hard enough for amateur sleuth Lucie Montgomery, even without an occasional dead body turning up. First Georgia Greenwood, controversial aspiring politician and second wife of the local doctor, is found dead at the edge of the vineyard, disfigured by chemicals used on the vines; then the young man alleged to be her lover disappears. Lucie finds motives abounding among the locals as she seeks the truth, but she's also concerned about losing her brash but capable head winemaker, worried about her younger sister's binge drinking, and becoming involved with a rich Brit who wants to buy a vineyard. This second entry in Crosby's series is nicely plotted and paced until the too-abrupt ending, when a previously sensible if overinquisitive Lucie goes alone to confront the murderer. But what might otherwise be a pedestrian mystery stands out because of its Civil War–based local history and winemaking detail.

Vintner Lucie Montgomery—The Merlot Murders (2006), The Chardonnay Charade (2007)—is getting ready for the harvest at her vineyard near Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. When she attends a lecture at Mount Vernon, she learns about the wines that Thomas Jefferson discovered in France and brought to George Washington. The lecturer later turns up dead, and Lucie suspects that the murder is related to the authenticity of a bottle of Chateau Margaux supposedly purchased for Washington that will be auctioned at a charity fundraiser she is planning. As Lucie investigates, her beloved grandfather comes to visit from France and provides valuable historical information about the wines to be auctioned, leading to the discovery of fraud and betrayal in the wine world, as well as World War II ties that some local aristocracy would prefer to leave hidden. This will have broad appeal for its wine lore and historical detail and has enough action to keep the pages turning fast.

When a tornado rips through Montgomery Estate Vineyard and unearths a grave in an abandoned field, police inform Lucie Montgomery that the odds are good someone in her family is responsible—possibly for murder. But she has more to worry about than buried secrets.A clash between her charming new farm manager and her winemaker, Quinn Santori, tests her complicated romantic and professional feelings for Quinn, fueling the winery’s combustible atmosphere. Meanwhile eerie ghost stories make her think twice about allowing Civil War reenactors to use a field near the grave site—until the spirits of her own family’s past converge for a most unexpected outcome.

Virginia vintner Lucie Montgomery returns in her fifth mystery. This time she begins by visiting Washington, D.C., during cherry-blossom season. Lucie is excited and intrigued to meet up with an old friend, Rebecca Natale, who is working as an assistant to a philanthropist and investment counselor. But the next morning Lucie is asked to identify Rebecca’s clothes, found in a rowboat floating in the Potomac. Is her friend staging an elaborate disappearance, or could this be suicide, or even murder? Clues include messages to be found in the writings of Alexander Pope and in the history of the War of 1812. As Lucie travels back and forth between her Montgomery Estate Vineyard and various D.C. venues, the wine business and her relationship with winemaker Quinn Santori begin to take a backseat to solving the mystery of Rebecca’s disappearance. The meticulously researched historical background—always a hallmark in Crosby’s novels—is nicely balanced by an intriguing mystery.

When Lucie Montgomery finds the body of prominent wine merchant Paul Noble hanging from a beam in his art studio not far from her Virginia vineyard, she is unwittingly dragged into Noble’s murky past. Once a member of the secretive Mandrake Society, Noble might have aided in a cover-up of the deaths forty years ago of a disabled man and a beautiful young biochemist involved in classified government research.

A seemingly innocent favor for an old friend of her French grandfather sends Lucie to California, where she teams up with Quinn Santori, who walked out of Lucie’s life months earlier. Soon Lucie and Quinn are embroiled in a deadly cat-and-mouse game that takes them from glittering San Francisco to the legendary vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, and back home to Virginia, as they try to discover whether a killer may be seeking vengeance for the long-ago deaths. As Lucie and Quinn struggle to uncover the past, they must also decide whether they have a future together. Blending an intriguing mystery with an absorbing plot, vivid characters, and a richly evoked setting, should be savored like a glass of fine wine.