Red wine and blood leave remarkably similar stains on the rug, which may be why so many crime writers are drawn to both. As for readers, who can resist a good vintage and a good case?
If you're ready to get drunk on suspicion, then we've got the perfect titles for you. But just remember, “body” has a very different meaning when it comes to wine and crime.
From Italy to France to California and beyond, uncork these incredible vineyard mysteries.
A Long Finish
Dibdin’s beloved Italian detective, Aurelio Zen, is sent to investigate the murder of a prominent winemaker in the rolling hills of Alba. The chief suspect is the dead man’s son.
However, a celebrated Italian filmmaker is determined to clear the boy’s name, if only so he can oversee production of what looks like an exceptional vintage.
Zen finds himself trapped between the local police and the overbearing movie director. Luckily there is plenty of Barbera, Barolo, and Brunello to take his mind off his problems.
The Dark Vineyard
Walker’s series, set in the Dordogne region of France and featuring the avuncular gastronome Bruno Courreges, has been delighting fans for decades—and it’s easy to see why.
Bruno is the chief of police in the fictional medieval town of St Denis. In this adventure, he’s caught up in a series of protests against a Californian wine-making conglomerate who wants to start in production the area.
The locals are always protesting about something, but this time things take a nasty turn when crops are set on fire and a man is killed.
Bruno investigates with his usual shrewd diligence while maintaining the Gallic devotion to the three hour lunch.
Burgundy
Sophisticated French wine and complicated French inheritance laws intertwine like the vines of the Cote de Beaune in Hubbard’s top class mystery featuring NYPD detective Max Maguire.
Maguire, the daughter of a divisive marriage between a New York cop and a French aristocrat, finds herself caught up in a murder while visiting on-off lover Olivier Charmont in one of France’s most celebrated wine regions.
It’s a satisfyingly knotty case with likable lead characters that develops as subtly as a good pinot noir.
Auntie Poldi And The Vineyards of Etna
The genial and big-hearted Bavarian, Auntie Poldi, has retired from Munich to Sicily. She’s expecting quiet years sitting in the sun and being romanced by handsome local cop Chief Inspector Vito Montana.
Unfortunately for her—but luckily for—things don’t quite turn out that way.
In this, the second in the series, Auntie Poldi finds herself investigating the killing of her neighbor’s dog and the murder of a local clairvoyant found dead amongst the vines.
Are the two events related? And where do those sinister figures from the local Mafia fit in?
The charming and wise Auntie Poldi has work to do before she can return home and enjoy a glass of prosecco on the terrace with her handsome policeman.
Aged for Murder
Ditzy thirty-something advertising executive Olivia Glass goes through a bad break-up, then follows her dream, dumps her highly paid job, and moves to Tuscany hoping to buy a vineyard.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, naturally, there’s a small town murder she gets caught up on, and lots of suspicious Italians and dodgy ex-pats to investigate. Not that this stops Olivia from pausing for pasta and Chianti every 10 pages.
The first in a seven-book series that effortlessly merges cozy mystery with gastronomy in a perfect piece of escapism.
Dying on the Vine
Cordon Bleu chef Peter King’s mysteries featuring the gourmet detective are not for anyone who is watching their weight–the loving descriptions of food will have even the most iron-willed dieter raiding the fridge.
In this, the third in the long running and well-loved series, the gourmet detective is in Provence. A series of peculiar business deals have troubled the owners of Willisford winery.
Those concerns grow deeper when a private detective they’ve hired to investigate disappears. In steps the gourmet detective.
Soon bodies are piling up—and so are restaurant bills.
A glorious, high-calorie treat.
Napa Noir
Northern California’s celebrated wine region is the setting for Peter Eichstaedt’s hardboiled novel featuring a reporter, the wine-loving Dante Rath.
In this 2018 mystery, Rath finds himself drawn into investigating a double slaying at an acclaimed winery. One of the dead is a tech bro investor, and the other is his apparent killer, the winery owner, gunned down by the sheriff’s deputies.
It seems like an open-and-shut case, but when the investor’s lawyer is shot while out jogging, Dante starts to wonder if there isn’t a conspiracy at back of it all.
Soon he’s uncovering a widespread fraud that seems certain to send shockwaves through the world of wine.
The Vineyard Victims
Number eight in Ellen Crosby’s justifiably popular Wine Country Mysteries series sees our plucky amateur sleuth, Lucie Montgomery, investigating a fatal and explosive car crash in a Virginia vineyard.
The dead man behind the wheel is a local billionaire, winery owner, and former presidential candidate. The police rule the death as suicide, but Lucie sees unnerving parallels with her own car smash 10 years earlier.
Soon she’s looking into the murder of a student which occurred three decades ago and the secret cabal of high-functioning college kids who seem connected to it.
Featured image: Kseniya Lapteva/Unsplash
