Author: Ellen Crosby
Expected Publication: November 7th 2017 by Minotaur Books
Format: eBook, Hardcover, 335 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Wine Country Mysteries #8
After the sixth book in this series, The Sauvignon Secret, Ellen Crosby took a break from her Wine Country series and I missed them. When she returned five years later with The Champagne Conspiracy, I was delighted but apprehensive since I was not sure if she would be able to return to her characters the way that she had left them. I was not disappointed and now with book eight, I am once again glad to return to Montgomery Estate Vineyards.
Failed presidential candidate Jamison Vaughn sails his car past Lucie on a rain slicked road outside of Montgomery Vineyards and plunges headlong into the stone pillars. Many believe that it was an accident but Lucie was there and knows that it was a deliberate act. No one wants to say the word suicide, but what would cause a man, with so much to live for, to end his life in such a brutal way.
These stone pillars have a history with Lucie, it is in this same location, ten years prior, where she was in a horrendous accident that has left her disabled and people are sure that she is confusing her accident with what she saw. No, she is sure of what she knows and being the last person to see Vaughn alive and hearing his last words, she is determined to find out whom “Rick” is and why he needs to forgive Vaughn.
Suddenly walls have gone up and the Vaughn family is shutting Lucie out. They will handle the press and since her ex-lover Mick Dunne, who has held long ties to the Vaughn’s, dismisses her at every turn, Lucie with no option other than to strikes out on her own to find answers. The Vaughn family is happy with their “accident” explanation and would like for this whole messy affair to go away, but it appears that Jamie was meeting with a reporter and was about to go public with a long held secret.
Trying to buy Lucie off only seems to get her in deeper and when college cover-ups are revealed, and the truth of whom “Rick” is, leaves a wake of devastation that will send a members of their small community to prison and set an innocent man free.
Ellen Crosby weaves a twisty tale that spans decades, but in the end, loyalties are tested and those that have been hiding a ghastly act have their truth revealed. I cannot say that it was obvious from the start, but by the end, there could have been only one mastermind that could hold it all together and keep Lucie from the truth.
Failed presidential candidate Jamison Vaughn sails his car past Lucie on a rain slicked road outside of Montgomery Vineyards and plunges headlong into the stone pillars. Many believe that it was an accident but Lucie was there and knows that it was a deliberate act. No one wants to say the word suicide, but what would cause a man, with so much to live for, to end his life in such a brutal way.
These stone pillars have a history with Lucie, it is in this same location, ten years prior, where she was in a horrendous accident that has left her disabled and people are sure that she is confusing her accident with what she saw. No, she is sure of what she knows and being the last person to see Vaughn alive and hearing his last words, she is determined to find out whom “Rick” is and why he needs to forgive Vaughn.
Suddenly walls have gone up and the Vaughn family is shutting Lucie out. They will handle the press and since her ex-lover Mick Dunne, who has held long ties to the Vaughn’s, dismisses her at every turn, Lucie with no option other than to strikes out on her own to find answers. The Vaughn family is happy with their “accident” explanation and would like for this whole messy affair to go away, but it appears that Jamie was meeting with a reporter and was about to go public with a long held secret.
Trying to buy Lucie off only seems to get her in deeper and when college cover-ups are revealed, and the truth of whom “Rick” is, leaves a wake of devastation that will send a members of their small community to prison and set an innocent man free.
Ellen Crosby weaves a twisty tale that spans decades, but in the end, loyalties are tested and those that have been hiding a ghastly act have their truth revealed. I cannot say that it was obvious from the start, but by the end, there could have been only one mastermind that could hold it all together and keep Lucie from the truth.
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