Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre AlauxMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Treachery in Bordeaux by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen is a Le French publication. This book was released in August 2012. This book was translated from French to English by Anne Trager, who did an outstanding job as usual.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Benjamin Cooker is an expert wine consultant and writes reviews and articles about wine. His new and rather "green" assistant, Virgile get an urgent request to check out a possible deliberate contamination of some wine barrels.
Benjamin also enjoys art and has found a rather unusual, wine related, painting that appears to have touched been up and there are several other versions floating around that have also been altered. This leads Benjamin and Virgile to a medieval professor that tells them all about the wine paintings.
Now Benjamin and Virgile find themselves investigating several crimes, one of which may be murder.
Benjamin is an old school gentleman. He is patient with his new assistant and obviously adores his wife and her gormet cooking skills.
This is the first in a series featuring Benjamin and his investigating skills. Wine, like art or any other thing can subject to criminals, competition, and well, treachery.
The information about wine and the history lesson was really interesting to me. This mystery had the feel of older detective novels written in the forties and fifties. There were no modern technology devices used, just the knowledge of wine, a lot of leg work, and a little help from friends.
I was engaged in the story and my only complaint is that it wasn't a very long novel. I read in one sitting.
If you like a good old fashioned mystery set in another country, and you like learning about culture and wine and good food, with excellent character development and the promise of future growth in the series, check this one out.
Overall I give this on an A.
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