Book cover from goodreads.com.
Written by Amanda Surowitz
Originally published in French in 2004, the English translation of this brief but charming mystery will be available Feb. 18. Though its target audience includes fine food and wine lovers, the mentions of various wines and meals aren’t so overbearing as to drive away readers in search of a good mystery. In fact, it just adds a touch of reality to each of the characters.
As well-known winemaker Benjamin Cooker is assigned to help a Chinese businessman buy out the Lavoisier Cognac company, his inner commentary on everything he drinks is a welcome distraction from the situation in front of him. A man is dead, an old flame distracts him from his wife, he has a speeding ticket and the Burgundy Aligoté is only so-so. Better switch to a 1994 Beau-Séjour-Bécot and this death is starting to look like a murder.
Meanwhile, Marie-France Lavoisier is somewhere between shocked, outraged and seemingly not surprised by her brothers’ actions and her family’s slipping grip on Lavoisier Cognac — when she’s not bathing naked in the moonlight or seducing men, that is. She may start out almost like a caricature of a middle-aged Frenchwoman, but her loyalty to her family and the family business outshines her manipulative nature. Then watching her uncross and cross her legs as Benjamin pretends not to see anything stops feeling like shallow flirting and more like calculated maneuvers.
Even without all the seduction and affairs, everything feels romantic. There are no plain winds in France; every breeze carries the scent of mint and chamomile, or mock orange. And it doesn’t just blow through the trees — it blows through crepe myrtles, shade-throwing ashes and forsythias. The sensuous descriptions add the finishing touch to this enchantingly unreal part of France and lull us from one scene to the next.
While the book is short enough to read in a single afternoon, the lilting language and intrigue between characters are worth slowing down to savor.
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