Title: Murder at the Cellar
Author: Dani Simms
Date: 2022
Quote: "She'd spent so much of her life on paths that led away from the vineyard, and, in the end, they all led her back."
(Points to Dani Simms for remembering how to write in third person, past tense, making this e-book read like a Real Book.)
Avery loves her farm. Well, her author's home is in Irvine. Avery's farm is a vineyard. Someone is trying to encourage her to leave in a creepy way, leaving nasty, threatening notes in and around the house. It might just possibly be the former owner, her parents tell her. An unpleasant, unpopular man, he let them have the farm indefinitely, on the condition that they'd leave if he ever came back to town. He's been gone so long that they've retired and left the place to Avery. Has he come back?
He has. And, as Avery doesn't budge, he allows her to find out why he left town. He does not intend that she live to testify. Of course, this being billed as a cozy mystery, we know she'll survive; I leave it to readers to find out how.
What's not to like? A vineyard. Wine culture. To me the whole book is icky-squicky because there are references to grape juice gone bad on every page. To some people that might be a temptation to backslide into an addiction. That leaves some people who might enjoy solving the mystery, though it's not much of an intellectual challenge. If you're one of those people, then you might enjoy this book and its sequel, or, by now, sequels.
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