Saturday 11 October 2014

Deadly Tasting : Review & Giveaway

My Thoughts



While reading the previous instalment of the Winemaker detective series, I couldn't help wondering if all this wine tasting and drinking wine at all available moments have any effect on Benjamin Cooker's health. Maybe he is one of those, whatever they eat or drink has no adverse effect on their body. Maybe not so. In this instalment, Winemaker Detective can drink as much as he wants, all day, whenever he wants the special cabbage soup Mrs.Cooker concocted to make our Detective a few pounds lighter. Imagine having not to eat anything but cabbage soup for seven days and being called to taste wines. Wonder what he could taste but hunger. If cabbage soup diet in combination with tasting wines can make one queasy add to it the crime scene- all blood and gore, with butchered bodies.

Winemaker detective is called to taste the glasses of wine the killer has left as a calling card in the crime scenes, of victims in their late eighties and early nineties. Who would leave a full glass of wine as a calling card? Why is somebody killing off old men who would die sooner or later anyway? What is the connection between these men and the wine? Can our Winemaker Detective crack the case?

The novel is really short that could be read in a couple of hours but with a heavy dose of history of Bordeaux and its involvement during World War Two. What was the stand of the people of Bordeaux during World War Two? What happened to wine production during these tumultuous years? As usual the mystery gets solved on its own. But that does not take away the pleasure of meeting the Winemaker detective with a sparkling wit again.

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Deadly Tasting

[cozy mystery]



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Release date: October 17, 2014

at Le French Book

144 pages

ISBN: 978-1939474216

Website | Goodreads

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SYNOPSIS

A serial killer is on the loose in Bordeaux. A local chief detective calls wine expert Benjamin Cooker to the crime scene of a brutal murder. The killer has left a strange calling card: twelve wine glasses lined up in a semi-circle with the first one filled with wine. Cooker is charged with the task of identifying the fabulous grand cru and is astonished by what he learns. A second victim is found, with two glasses filled. Is the killer intentionally leaving clues about his victims and his motives? Memories are jogged about the complicated history of Bordeaux during Nazi occupation. It was a dark time: weinfuhrers ruled the wine trade, while collaborationists and paramilitary organizations spread terror throughout the region. In present-day wine country, time is running out. Will Cooker and his young assistant Virgile solve the mystery before all twelve glasses are full? [provided by the publisher]


WATCH THE TRAILER

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRrqrT44psg


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An episode in a long successful French mysteries series that is a hit television series now in its fourth season and attracting an audience of over 4 million. The series is a huge success in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS


©David Nakache


Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover and recently won the Antonin Carême prize.
He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective series, which he writes with Noël Balen. It is a 22-strong series that is a hit on French television and is now being translated into English by Le French Book.


ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Translator Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her Masters Degree in French Literature from the University of Colorado where she wrote Camus and the Americas: A Thematic Analysis of Three Works Based on His Journaux de Voyage. Her career includes more than twenty years of translating and teaching French and Italian at Berlitz and at Colorado University Boulder. She has worked in scientific, legal and literary translation; her literary translations include Operatic Arias; Singers Edition, and Reality and the Untheorizable by Clément Rosset. She also served as the interpreter for the government cabinet of Rwanda and translated for Dian Fossey’s Digit Fund. In addition to her passion for French, she has studied Italian at Colorado University, in Rome and in Siena. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband.

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Tour-wide Giveaway

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Disclaimer: I received an ebook from the France Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. I was not compensated for this review and all opinions are my own.