Title: The Angels' Share
Author: Ellen Crosby
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Series: Wine Country Mysteries #10
Format: e-book ARC ( 368 p.)
Description:
Ellen Crosby pours up another corking mystery with The Angels' Share, an intriguing blend of secret societies, Prohibition bootleg wine, and potentially scandalous documents hidden by the Founding Fathers, all of which yield a vintage murder.
When Lucie Montgomery attends a Thanksgiving weekend party for friends and neighbors at Hawthorne Castle, an honest-to-goodness castle owned by the Avery family, the last great newspaper dynasty in America and owner of the Washington Tribune, she doesn’t expect the festive occasion to end in death.
During the party, Prescott Avery, the 95-year old family patriarch, invites Lucie to his fabulous wine cellar where he offers to pay any price for a cache of 200-year-old Madeira that her great-great-uncle, a Prohibition bootlegger, discovered hidden in the US Capitol in the 1920s. Lucie knows nothing about the valuable wine, believing her late father, a notorious gambler and spendthrift, probably sold or drank it. By the end of the party Lucie and her fiancé, winemaker Quinn Santori, discover Prescott’s body lying in his wine cellar. Is one of the guests a murderer?
As Lucie searches for the lost Madeira, which she believes links Prescott’s death to a cryptic letter her father owned, she learns about Prescott’s affiliation with the Freemasons. More investigating hints at a mysterious vault supposedly containing documents hidden by the Founding Fathers and a possible tie to William Shakespeare. If Lucie finds the long-lost documents, the explosive revelations could change history. But will she uncover a three hundred-year-old secret before a determined killer finds her?
My Thoughts:
In this book Lucie and Quinn get invited to an annual Christmas party to start off the holiday season. When Lucie gets in a private discussion with Prescott Avery she doesn't count on finding him dead minutes later! The family of course is quick to cover it up, and the play The Tempest becomes an overall issue with this family. Also an old copy of the Declaration of Independence becomes a hotbed of gossip.
Lucie has a hard time when the family tries to cover it up and become determined to find out what Lucie knows. Was it something that related to his death? There are no shortage of possible suspects and of course the fabulous wine is flowing will Lucie be corked if she gets to close?
I love this series it's deep in history of the area along with a good old fashioned murder of some sort and Leland Lucie's dad seems to be at the center of what is going on! This series is addictive and can be read as either a series or standalone novels. I really enjoy this series and can't wait to see what is next for the adventurous sleuth!
0 shout outs:
Post a Comment