Danielle Postel-Vinay: Murder Most Delicious
Series Debut
There are several ways to judge a book. If three are present – plot, character, and setting – the book (to me) is good, if not great. The x factor is prose style. This novel has three excellent elements – character, setting and lovely prose. The plot is OK and I figured out whodunnit long before the last page, but the prose just sings as does the setting of the novel, and I was carried away.
That setting is a tiny Paris neighborhood, Gros-Caillou, abutting the Eiffel Tower. The arrival of American sommelier Olivia Beech to a local anchor restaurant, Chez Jacques, is something of a sensation, becoming even more so when, during a wine tasting, the eponymous Jacques falls dead at Olivia’s feet. While Olivia has been gifted with an extraordinary “nose” for wine, covid has taken away her sense of taste, which for a sommelier is a disaster. Surfacing from a career crisis in an attempt to reclaim her life, she’s pinned her hopes on a resurrection at Chez Jacques.