With this latest in the Winemakers Detective series, we get to explore the fine dining of France once more as autumn arrives. A DEADLY TASTING sees vintner and wine expert Benjamin Cooker summoned by a police detective to the scene of a recent murder. An arrangement of wine glasses has been left and one is filled with red wine. Upon being assured by lab tests that there is no poison, Benjamin agrees to give the wine the benefit of a tasting session. He decides that the wine came from the Petrus region, and is well aged. Why would any killer leave such a calling card?

Virgile, Benjamin's aide and co-detective, accompanies his mentor next time there is such an occasion, and both men sip the tell-tale wine this time. Definitely similar to the first, they agree, sixty years old. But with a second man brutally killed, what is going on here?

Everything over half a century old in France hearkens back to the war, I find. Now we learn that at that time the men were absent and trucks confiscated, so the women and children had to complete the grape harvests and make wine as best they could. Because of this even the best regions showed inconsistencies. The red Petrus however has always been a great wine, with tastes of red and black berries, truffles, liquorice, raspberry and cinnamon. As well- preserved wines from the 1940s now sell for tens of thousands of euros, and many were removed to German markets, the matter of who could be using these bottles is indeed puzzling.

Amusingly - and appropriately - Benjamin's devoted wife insists that he take up a vegetable diet to burn off the fat of too many good meals. I also liked the story of the admirable Portuguese consul Sousa Mendes, who wrote visas for thirty thousand Jewish people to escape France to his neutral small country. Bitter events make for long memories and the story treats past matters with great respect.

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen are now a well established collaborative team and this story of amateur but expert sleuths in wine country is a polished piece of work. A DEADLY TASTING is translated by Sally Pane. I feel that the story would interest students of wartime history and wine lovers as much as crime readers.

Book Summary

A serial killer is on the loose in Bordeaux. A local chief detective calls wine expert Benjamin Cooker to the crime scene of a brutal murder. The killer has left a strange calling card: twelve wine glasses lined up in a semi- circle with the first one filled with wine.

Cooker is charged with the task of identifying the fabulous grand cru and is astonished by what he learns. A second victim is found, with two glasses filled. Is the killer intentionally leaving clues about his victims and his motives?

Memories are jogged about the complicated history of Bordeaux during Nazi occupation.

It was a dark time: weinfuhrers ruled the wine trade, while collaborationists and paramilitary organizations spread terror throughout the region. In present-day wine country, time is running out.

Will Cooker and his young assistant Virgile solve the mystery before all twelve glasses are full?

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