Love, Danger, Homecomings & Heart — Your June Reading Escape Starts Here

Purchase

Bitter Roots, March 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
The Angels' Share, November 2019
Hardcover / e-Book
Harvest of Secrets, November 2018
Hardcover / e-Book
The Vineyard Victims, November 2017
Hardcover / e-Book
The Champagne Conspiracy, September 2017
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
The Champagne Conspiracy, November 2016
Hardcover / e-Book
Ghost Image, May 2015
Hardcover / e-Book
Multiple Exposure, August 2013
Hardcover / e-Book
The Merlot Murders, August 2007
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
The Chardonnay Charade, August 2007
Hardcover

THE MERLOT MURDERS
By: Ellen Crosby

Readers Selection

January 21, 2008

Wine Country #1
Pocket
August 2007
On Sale: July 31, 2007
368 pages
ISBN: 1416536043
EAN: 9781416536048
Kindle: B000NY12JG
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
Add to Wish List

Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Woman Sleuth

A phone call at two thirty in the morning is never good news. Lucie Montgomery's semiestranged brother, Eli, calls her in France to tell her their father, Leland, has been killed in a hunting accident on the family's five-hundred- acre Virginia vineyard just as the fall harvest is about to begin. By the time he calls, Eli has already made funeral arrangements with what Lucie argues is indecent haste.

It is an emotional trip home -- the first since an automobile accident two years ago, which left Lucie disabled and dependent on a cane. Her family's once elegant home and winery are now shabby and run-down, thanks to her father's penchant for fringy business deals. Eli, also cash-strapped and desperate to support his new wife's extravagant lifestyle, has already convinced their rebellious younger sister, Mia, to sell the debt-ridden estate and reap the profits from the valuable land it sits on, overruling Lucie's protests.

On the eve of the funeral Lucie's godfather, Fitz, a partner in the family business, tells her Leland's death was no accident. Whoever killed him was motivated by the potential sale of the vineyard. It is the last conversation she will have with Fitz. Now the lone holdout preventing the vineyard sale, Lucie realizes she's next in line for another "accident." With her greedy brother, hell- raising sister, and a seemingly cut-rate vintner hired by Leland just before he died, all the suspects are disturbingly close to home. Unsure whom she can trust, Lucie must uncover the truth about the deaths of her father and godfather -- and oversee a successful harvest to save the vineyard she loves.