Book Review: Treachery in Bordeaux

Book: Treachery in Bordeaux (Winemaker Detective Mysteries book #1) by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen with translations from Anne Trager

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

An immersion in French countryside and gourmet attitude with two amateur sleuths gumshoeing around Bordeaux wine country.

In modern-day Bordeaux, there are few wine estates still within the city limits. The prestigious grand cru Moniales Haut-Brion is one of them. When some barrels turn, world-renowned winemaker turned gentleman detective Benjamin Cooker starts asking questions. Is it negligence or sabotage? Who would want to target this esteemed vintner? Cooker and his assistant Virgile Lanssien search the city and the vineyards for answers, giving readers and inside view of this famous wine region.

Treachery in Bordeaux is the first of the 20-book Winemaker Detective series that delves into the underworld of a global luxury industry. The world of wine is no more respectable than the world of finance. There’s money, deceit, death, crime, inheritance, jealousy—all the ingredients needed to distill a fine detective series!


Rating: 2 stars

Review:

I read the second book "The Grand Cru Heist" in this series first and could barely get through it because it was awful but I found the first book to be a much better read albeit a little boring at times but a better read. I thought the characters were better written in this book compared to the second book. They were interesting and seemed more real even though Benjamin Cooker can be a bit snobbish and abrupt at times.

This book is very detail oriented and gives perhaps more technical information than necessary for readers about wine making, that is unless you are a true wine connoisseur and really want to know the various processes that wine goes through. But I did like many of the details featured in the story such as the good descriptions of the food, the city, the artwork, history and many more. But ultimately there were just too much information and too many details throughout this book that dragged the story down.

It took a while for the mystery solving to begin. And when it did, the mystery focused on wine writer/maker Benjamin Cooker and his newly hired assistant Virgile Lanssien as they try to figure out why barrels of wine have gone bad from his friend Denis Massepain's winery. It's quite possible someone has tampered with the wine and what is it's connection to certain pieces of artwork. And how does the death of Historian Ferdinand Tenotier fit into their investigation?

These questions were answered but I wish the story had edited a numerous amount of details that offered nothing to the story and that the mystery had more suspense and been more engaging. There was no real challenge for the reader in regards to trying to solve the mystery. Like the second book it does have a tendency to focus on unimportant things which slows down the momentum of the story instead of focusing more on the mystery.

If the other books in the series are like this one then I may like to read the third book but I just hope it nothing like the second one and has also cut a lot of excessive details and information.