Book Review: Death By The Glass

Reviewed By: Webspinner - RAM

Death By The Glass     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Nadia Gordon
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Culinary   Woman Main Character   Amateur Sleuth
Series: Sunny McCoskey # 2
Chronicle Books; Dec 2003; 269

Sunny McClosky is the chef and owner of the Napa Valley wine country restaurant "Wildside", but tonight, she is cooking for a benefit involving five chefs from five different restaurants at "Vinifera". After a close call with mushrooms in the kitchen, the event goes on to a successful conclusion, but with the owner of Vinifera never making his expected appearance. The next day it is learned that the owner was already dead at his home before the event, of a heart attack.

But Sunny is convinced there must have been more to it than a heart attack, and therein lays the sediment, as it were. No scenario offered by the coroner or the police department or his friends covers all the circumstances of his death; at least not to Sunny's satisfaction.

This second in the Sunny McClosky series is a "back-stage" look into the high-end restaurant and wine culture of California's breathtaking Napa Valley. Not quite a cozy [more of a classic mystery] this story manages to leave the sex in the bedroom behind closed doors where it belongs, the actual recipes to the reader's imagination [another plus] and concentrates on the main characters and the mystery. While I probably learned more about expensive wines than I needed to know, the book carries with it an authenticity that adds to the story. The characterizations unfold throughout and if this is your first, it should whet your appetite for the rest of the Sunny McClosky series. Well done!

Webspinner - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Webspinner - RAM