Cognac Conspiracies Review and Giveaway

Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN

on tour February 1-20  with

Cognac Conspiracies

(cozy wine mystery)

Release date:

February 18, 2015
at Le French Book

 

Website | Goodreads

SUMMARY:

The heirs to one of the oldest Cognac estates in France face a hostile takeover by foreign investors. Renowned wine expert Benjamin Cooker is called in to audit the books. In what he thought was a sleepy provincial town, he is stonewalled, crosses paths with his first love, and stands up to high-level state officials keen on controlling the buyout. Meanwhile, irresistible Virgile mingles with the local population until a drowning changes the stakes. [provided by the publisher]

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An episode in a long successful French mysteries series that is a hit television series now in its fourth season  and attracting an audience of over 4 million.  The series is a huge success in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

MY REVIEW:

I absolutely love the Winemaker Detective Series so much that I came out of semi-retirement on the tour circuit to review and promote this, the fifth installment in the series. One of the biggest reasons why I enjoy this series is that authors, Alaux and Balen, have created a hero, Benjamin Cooker, who is, besides being an unwilling detective, correspondingly an ‘internationally respected wine expert’ and a master at literary quotes. Cooker is also a genuinely normal and unassuming man. He accepts his accolades as a matter of course but never demands adulation.

In the same off-hand, and very French, manner, Alaux and Balen entice and entertain the reader with edible delicacies, superb cigars, and vintage wines, offered with a backdrop of some of France’s most beautiful vineyards and countrysides. The vision of rain-swept gardens and cemeteries is enough to make the most intrepid traveler rush right out to purchase a ticket to France, bypassing the Eiffel Tower and heading straight to the quaint, but luxuriant, eateries and inns.

In Cognac Conspiracies, Cooker takes a slight backseat to his trusty, and very virile assistant, Virgile, in solving the mystery of who murdered one of the Cognac heirs. Cooker is busy reacquainting himself with his sexy, redheaded college flame who has secrets of her own. As usual though, Cooker eventually hands the murderer, signed, sealed and delivered, to the local constables and makes his weary way home in his trusty Mercedes 280 SL.

Click HERE for my review of Nightmare in Burgundy and HERE for my review of Grand Cru Heist.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

The authors of the Winemaker Detective series, are Epicures. Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and TV journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and wine making. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine.
He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective, which he coauthors with Noël Balen.
Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music.
He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

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ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Translator Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her Masters Degree in French Literature from the University of Colorado where she wrote Camus and the Americas: A Thematic Analysis of Three Works Based on His Journaux de Voyage. Her career includes more than twenty years of translating and teaching French and Italian at Berlitz and at Colorado University Boulder. She has worked in scientific, legal and literary translation; her literary translations include Operatic Arias; Singers Edition, and Reality and the Untheorizable by Clément Rosset. She also served as the interpreter for the government cabinet of Rwanda and translated for Dian Fossey’s Digit Fund. In addition to her passion for French, she has studied Italian at Colorado University, in Rome and in Siena. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband.

 

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You can enter the giveaway here or on the book blogs participating in this tour.
Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook, they are listed in the entry form below.

Entry-Form

Visit each blogger on the tour:
tweeting about the giveaway every day
of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time!
(just follow the directions on the entry-form)

8 winners will each receive:
Choice of print or digital format for US residents
Digital format for all other residents

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