Lynne is a tour guide who takes a small group to Sanoma County, California for a week of wine tasting, cooking classes, balloon rides and fine dining. The group stays at a boutique winery which was owned by the Belladuce family until their financial situation forced them to sell the property to a Silicon Valley millionaire and his wife. Just as the group is settling in for its week of relaxation someone is murdered in the winery and the ensuing investigation causes some problems for some of Lynne’s group members.

I sought out this book because it’s set in wine country and I have a fondness for such locations. In that respect the author was successful, setting the scene well and including some interesting facts about the region as the tour group visited wineries, the giant redwoods and other attractions.

In other aspects the book didn’t work for me. The protagonist was dull and hardly generated enough of the plot movement to even be considered a main protagonist. She certainly wasn’t any sort of amateur sleuth in traditional cosy fashion. But the investigation didn’t feature heavily enough for the policewoman to be considered the main plot driver either. The rest of the characters were either dull as rocks or too stereotypical for words. The millionaire geek is a quite absurd caricature and I found myself annoyed that the writer would be so shallow in her character development.

The plot, what little of it there was, fell apart completely with the most ridiculous resolution. It was like the culprit was chosen at random after the book had been written because nothing that happened during ‘the big reveal’ bore any relationship to prior events. However by the time I got to the ending (admittedly having skimmed the last third of the book due to fast-waning interest) I wasn’t expecting much else as there didn’t seem to be a lot happening for the preceding 250 pages either. If there was a story arc among the descriptions of places visited and vignettes about young love blossoming I missed it completely.

In short, I won’t be looking for any more books by this author. ( )