The Vineyard Victims

September 1, 2017
A woman's determination to keep a promise puts her in a killer's cross hairs.Ten years ago, Lucie Montgomery's boyfriend, speeding down a country road, smashed his car into a pillar, leaving Lucie badly injured. Now engaged to winemaker Quinn Santori, Lucie runs a winery on her family's Virginia estate. In a horrible moment of deja vu, Lucie's run off the road by her friend Jamison Vaughn, who crashes into the same pillar that almost took her life. As she struggles to get him out of the car, he says, "Tell Rick I need him to forgive me." Her former lover Mick Dunne drags her away just as the car bursts into flames. Lucie thinks Jamie, who'd just lost an election for U.S. president, deliberately drove into the pillar, and she's determined to find Rick--whoever he is--and pass on the message. The only other clue is a medical alert bracelet Lucie stuffed in her pocket after Jamie dropped it. Jamie's wife, Elena, insists that Lucie let the family handle the press, which is hounding Lucie for more details. Depressed after losing the election and burdened by huge debts, it seems plausible enough that Jamie was suicidal, but the family is determined to get an accident verdict. In order to shut Lucie up, they give her expensive tickets for a dinner entitling her to a taste of a rare, old, locally produced wine. Meanwhile, Jamie's daughter Sasha, whom Lucie's brother is dating, suggests she go see her mother, Vanessa Pensiero, Jamie's ex-wife, who may know about Rick and the bracelet. The tale she tells goes back to college days when Vanessa, Jamie, Mick, Elena, and a professor were all briefly involved in the murder investigation of one of their friends. Although Taurique Youngblood was convicted and is still on death row, he may be innocent, as Lucie, against her friends' wishes, resolves to prove.Crosby (The Champagne Conspiracy, 2016, etc.) continues to explore the privileged world of the Virginia hunt country with a fine mystery, solid characterization, and a shocking finale.

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September 25, 2017
In Crosby’s full-bodied eighth Wine Country mystery (after 2016’s The Champagne Conspiracy), Virginia vintner Lucie Montgomery has to swerve on a rain-slick road to avoid a head-on collision with a speeding car driven by her neighbor Jamie Vaughn, an unsuccessful U.S. presidential candidate. When Jamie slams into a stone pillar at the entrance to her property, Lucie leaps from her vehicle and races to the wreckage. She’s in time only to hear his dying words: “Tell Rick I need him to forgive me.” Most people who knew Jamie figure it was an accident, but Lucie is sure that the crash was deliberate. When Jamie’s nearest and dearest begin acting suspiciously, Lucie becomes determined to find Rick and deliver Jamie’s message. The intrigue grows, as does the danger to herself, after Lucie learns that Rick was an old friend of Jamie’s who’s now on death row for the murder some 30 years earlier of a brilliant doctoral student at the University of Virginia. Crosby keeps the reader guessing until the exciting climax. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

October 1, 2017
Lucie Montgomery witnesses Jamie Vaughn's fiery crash and death at the stone wall outside Lucie's vineyard, the same stone wall where Lucie was in a car accident as a teen, leaving her disabled. Jamie's last words to Lucie before his death instructed her to tell Rick I need him to forgive me. Lucie works to locate Rick to give him Jamie's final message, but Jamie's family stonewalls her. Continuing efforts to track down Rick lead Lucie to a decades-old murder case that may have landed the wrong man on death row. Although she realizes the real murderer may be someone she knows from her close-knit community, Lucie perseveres, even though she must work with her ex-boyfriend's brother, bringing up painful memories and forcing Lucie to come to terms with her past. Readers who enjoy the winery-frame story should also try Decanting a Murder (2017) by Nadine Nettmann.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)