Sauvignon Secret

Title: Sauvignon Secret
Author: Ellen Crosby
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: August 16, 2011
Format: Audio
Genre: Mystery
Source: Library
Series: Wine Country Mystery #6

If rumors are true, this is the last in the Lucie Montgomery wine making series by Ellen Crosby. Apparently, she has deciding to branch off in a new direction, which I find disappointing, since this is one of my favorite series and I hate to see them go. When you are six books into a series, the characters begin to feel more like friends, then actual words in a book.

"I didn’t want to kill Paul Noble. Yes, I said I did. Worse, I said it in a public place. In my defense, half a dozen people at that same meeting chimed in. “Get in line” or “join the club” or “you and me both. It was a figure of speech, and everyone in the room—twenty-five northern Virginia winemakers like me—knew it."

Lucie Montgomery is left rethinking her words when she finds the body of Paul Noble, a local wine merchant, hanging from a beam in an apparent suicide with a bottle of Montgomery Vineyards wine tipped over underneath him. This is so not going to be a good day and as the story of Paul’s past comes to the forefront; Lucie slowly unravels the cover-up of classified government research, murders and other secrets that might have been better left buried.

Branching out from the usual Virginia landscape, Lucie and her grandfather travel to San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma as they uncover the clues to this murder mystery. Quinn Santori reappears, but as Lucie and her self-confidence grow, she and Quinn must decide if they have a future together. Do they have enough to keep them together or is it time to go their separate ways.

I guess we will have to see what Ms Crosby’s decision will be concerning this series, but I do hope that she will give us a new book from time to time and we can keep connected to the vineyard and the people of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.