More frolics from the wine-making experts, and murder as tempers are strained at harvest time. Settle back and relax as we watch other people working. RED-HANDED IN ROMANEE- CONTI begins with Benjamin Cooker and his beloved wife visiting Benjamin's father in London. But an early start to the grape harvest in the Burgundy region means Benjamin has to cut his visit short. His own grapes are in Bordeaux but he supervises the harvest for an old friend and client, and this year a mechanical grape sorter is to be introduced. He arrives to hear that one of the casual worker grape pickers, a woman named Clotilde Dupont, has been found murdered.

More bad news follows. A storm of hail falls without warning and Benjamin and his young assistant Virgile hear stones clatter off the roof, see the smashed grapes at the foot of the vines. Some fields lose sixty percent of the harvest. A bad hail year can mean losing a fortune. The race to save the remnants from fungus is on. Along with neighbourly ideals we find competitiveness between vintners in the same region and between different regions. I'm interested to note that forty percent of students at the University of Bordeaux are women, and some of the top wines today are made by women. But it seems that old attitudes die hard among some vintners and women are not always considered craftsmen.

Benjamin's poor father has to end up sadder but wiser, I was thinking from the start, and sure enough all does not go smoothly. Benjamin too experiences being on the wrong side of events. The main action in this story is the bustling work of wine making under the French sun. We see that while mechanisation is making inroads, there is still plenty of hand labour and quality control involved. And I like that we find out more of Virgile's background, and why his own family doesn't make wine anymore. The history of the princely estate of Romanee-Conti is related. But the vexed matter of the murdered Clothilde occupies a lot of the account, with envy, jealousy, love, lies and blackmail.

RED-HANDED IN ROMANEE-CONTI is certainly one of the more complex mysteries from the pens of Jean-Pierre Alaux, Noël Balen and translated by Sally Pane. I find it a fitting tribute to all the unsung hard workers who bring us our wines. Good health!