The Riesling Retribution (Wine Country Mystery Series #4) »

Ellen Crosby is a former freelance reporter for The Washington Post and was the Moscow correspondent for ABC Radio News. She is the author of Moscow Nights, The Merlot Murders and The Chardonnay Charade. Crosby lives in Virginia with her family. Visit her website at www.ellencrosby.com.

Colorful characters, fascinating history, and winemaking detail blend with luminous prose in Ellen Crosby’s “sprightly” (Publishers Weekly) new tale of suspense set in Virginia’s lush wine country.

When a tornado rips through Montgomery Estate Vineyard and unearths a grave in an abandoned field, police inform Lucie Montgomery that the odds are good someone in her family is responsible—possibly for murder. But she has more to worry about than buried secrets.A clash between her charming new farm manager and her winemaker, Quinn Santori, tests her complicated romantic and professional feelings for Quinn, fueling the winery’s combustible atmosphere. Meanwhile eerie ghost stories make her think twice about allowing Civil War reenactors to use a field near the grave site—until the spirits of her own family’s past converge for a most unexpected outcome.

Publishers Weekly

When Lucie Montgomery stumbles across a skull in her vineyard-just after the tornado that almost kills her-little does she suspect the skeletons in the family closet to which the discovery will lead in Crosby's sprightly fourth Virginia wine country mystery (after 2008's The Bordeaux Betrayal). But who can blame the amateur detective for being a bit off her game, with the hurricane of headaches already buffeting Montgomery Estate Vineyard? Hot-tempered winemaker Quinn Santori and handsome new manager Chance Miller (Lucie is attracted to both) are at each other's throats-and hundreds of Civil War buffs are due in days to re-enact the 1861 Battle of Ball's Bluff. Expect plenty of fireworks as Lucie pursues her own investigation into the old, but no longer cold, homicide and a fast-paced sprint to what proves a rather slapdash finish. Until then, however, Crosby serves up a wine cooler that goes down easy even if it's hardly vintage. (Aug.)

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