Dead in the Dregs
A Babe Stern Mystery
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
It’s murder in Napa Valley in this “thrillingly knowledgeable, insider’s odyssey into the world of fine wines [and] . . . particularly lurid homicides” (Anthony Bourdain).
With a stroke of a pen, prominent wine critic Richard Wilson lives to elevate and, more often, destroy winemakers’ reputations. How fitting, his death: found murdered, floating in a vat of a particularly bold Cabernet Sauvignon at a Napa Valley tasting. Who did it? Any vintner whose career was ruined by Wilson’s sour grapes. But when those trail turns cold, Wilson’s sister Janie enlists the help of her ex–husband, Babe Stern. The ex–sommelier turned Sonoma County bar owner is following his own lead—to Burgundy, France.
In cellars and tasting rooms from Beaune to Nuits–Saint–Georges, Stern tracks down a family of vignerons, whose troubled son was interning at the winery the night Wilson died. But it doesn’t end there. And as the investigation uncovers secrets bottled up for years, Wilson won’t be the last to die. In fact, the further Stern digs for the truth, he may be the next.
“An evocative insiders’ tour of French wine country that a tourist will never see” (Seattle Times), restaurateur and former wine columnist Peter Lewis’s juicy mystery is “a rare and engrossing wonder dealing with the murderous grotesqueries of the wine world . . . in an atmosphere of homicide, sex and food” (Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Restaurateur and wine connoisseur Lewis brings his insider's expertise to this well-crafted debut, which introduces Babe Stern, one-time sommelier and current bar owner in California's Napa Valley. When Babe's former brother-in-law, vituperative wine critic Richard Wilson, goes missing, Babe's ex-wife, Janie, asks him to find Richard. Still carrying a torch, Babe hopes to earn back Janie's respect by locating Richard quickly. The task doesn't prove too difficult, since Wilson turns up dead the next morning at a nearby winery. Armed with a keen sense of taste and smell as well as a handful of contacts within the wine industry, Babe sets out on a transcontinental trek to solve what soon turns into a series of gruesome murders. Vignerons and casual imbibers alike will enjoy the ride as Babe sifts through the wreckage of several family trees, including his own.