From Publishers Weekly
Effervescent 50-ish photojournalist Margaret Barlow returns from her well-received first appearance in Murder on the Chesapeake to investigate untoward doings at a California winery. Arriving at the L'Abbaye de Ste. Denise to do a harvest story, Margaret finds herself in the middle of a family feud among the estate owners, brothers John and Bryant Selfridge and John's ex-wife Hester. Successive years of sabotage, including pesticide found in the vats and arson, have led the abbey to the brink of foreclosure. Then a migrant grape picker is deliberately run over; a family member is shredded in the stemmer-crusher machine; and the employee in charge of PR is drowned in a vat of cabernet. Margaret's detecting includes a clandestine investigation of the office files in search of wills, divorce papers and tax returns. But not even the help of the local newspaper editor, a cherubic octogenarian who becomes her cohort, nor the action of the extremely unpleasant homicide chief can save her from being trapped in the cloister cellars in the fast-paced finale to this intriguingly intricate entertainment. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Freelance journalist Margaret Barlow (Murder on the Chesapeake, etc.), in California for a hot-air ballooning vacation, agrees to write a magazine piece on a Napa Valley winery--and is soon ensconced in L'Abbaye Ste. Denise, jointly owned by brothers John and Bryant, plus John's ex-wife Hester and his adopted daughter Lureen. The winery, in deep financial trouble after a yearlong series of accidents/sabotage, could be sold, but only if all the partners agree to it--which, of course, they don't. Then Hester is ground to bits in the grape-crusher; the p.r. woman drowns in a fermenting tank; and the death last fall of a migrant worker may be connected to the winery's current problems. Plucky Margaret enlists the aid of a local newspaper editor, and the two eventually unmask a Swiss pretending to be a Frenchman, as well as unearth a few secret love affairs, before wrapping up the case. Amateurish writing, a dull heroine, and a slap-dash rendering of winemaking--all make for a less-than-memorable third outing for Osborn's fiftysomething sleuth. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

When a shocking act of sabotage at the 200-year-old Abbaye de Ste. Denise Winery results in the death of a Mexican migrant worker, feisty fifty-something amateur detective Margaret Barlow is on the case! "(Barlow is) an appealing heroine-narrator . . . an intrepid sleuth."--Publishers Weekly.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly