Review by New York Times Review
Summer is no time to be virtuous. So before you pack those classic tomes you're determined to read on vacation, let me tempt you with a few guilty pleasures. The murder case John Glatt recounts in lurid detail in THE PRINCE OF PARADISE (St. Martin's, $26.99) is too bizarre for a work of fiction. In fact, it's a true crime story, originating at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach and harking back to the fabled era when stars like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra entertained the crowds at the front of the house while mobsters ran the show behind the scenes. Ben Novack Jr., the little prince of the title and one of the murder victims in this sordid story, was the son of the colorful entrepreneur who built the hotel and reigned over his fabulously vulgar empire for almost 25 years. Pampered but neglected, the child everyone called Benji had famous guests like Jerry Lewis and Ann-Margret for playmates, but no one for a friend. No wonder the kid grew up to be a thoroughly obnoxious man. "Every neighbor hated him," according to someone who knew him well. "They hated him everywhere." Novack's second wife, a former stripper, hated him enough to have him murdered - and his mother for good measure. But while Glatt does a professional job of covering the lonely life and violent death of this unhappy prince, his style is much livelier when he's writing about Novack's father, the king of glitz. If there's anything flashier than a murder in Miami Beach, it would have to be a murder in Las Vegas. LUCKY BASTARD (Tom Doherty/Forge, $25.99) is the latest in a breezy series of mysteries by Deborah Coonts set at the wonderfully named (and riotously decorated) Babylon hotel and featuring Lucky O'Toole, a brainy beauty whose public relations job makes her the establishment's "professional problem solver." Lucky's duties entail solving homicides executed in the ostentatious manner consistent with the Babylon's image as "Las Vegas's most over-the-top Strip casinoresort." That mandate is met when a lady cardsharp is found stretched out on the hood of a red Ferrari with a Jimmy Choo stiletto heel buried in her neck. This time out, Lucky wastes entirely too much energy chasing men and whining about the one who got away. But the oddball players checking in for the Sin City Smack Down poker tournament ("the Super Bowl of Texas Hold 'em") save the day by providing richer material for Lucky's snappy wit. "Sarcasm is my best thing," she modestly acknowledges while sizing up characters like Miss Becky-Sue, "that little bit of Texas trash," whose motto is: "The bigger the hair, the closer to God." Pulp fiction is great for the beach, but there's nothing like a good destination mystery to take you out of town for the summer. This category has two branches: the Enthusiastic American Abroad travelogue and the I'm a Native and You're Not procedural. Since the latter often take place in Italy, the square of revenge (Pegasus Crime, $24.95), by the Belgian author Pieter Aspe, is a welcome addition. Set in the splendid medieval city of Bruges, it stars Inspector Pieter Van In, a brusque cop with every bad habit you can think of. The story opens with an extremely vindictive crime: thieves have broken into an exclusive jewelry store, but instead of making off with the loot they dump it in a tank of corrosive chemicals. Van In's intuitive and often impulsive detection style can be disorienting, but his powers of observation are sharp and his insider's view of this ancient and grandly aloof city are priceless. The viewpoint of the awed American abroad is reflected in some of Katherine Hall Page's whodunits, which she refers to as "love letters" to the places visited by her amateur sleuth, Faith Fairchild, the wife of a minister and a successful caterer back home in New England. THE BODY IN THE PIAZZA (Morrow/HarperCollins, $24.99) finds the couple observing their wedding anniversary in Italy, which means we get enticing recipes at the back of the book and cooking tips sprinkled throughout. Faith and her husband start in Rome, so it's no surprise that their first stop is the food market in the Campo de' Fiori - or that the charming new English friend who helps show them around should be murdered before their eyes. The crime is solved satisfactorily, but not until the Fairchilds move on to Florence and find more mysterious goings-on at the culinary classes at Cucina Della Rossi that were supposed to be the highlight of the trip. Their sightseeing treks to Tuscan hill towns are less frantically paced than their whirlwind tour of Rome, but at least most of the participants emerge alive. And let's be honest: most of us came for the food. Although Canadian born, M. L. Longworth has lived in Aix-enProvence since 1997, so her picturesque mysteries feel rooted in the rich local soil, good for both wine-growing and burying bodies. DEATH IN THE VINES (Penguin, paper, $15) opens with a crime that calls for severe punishment in this region - the theft of some rare vintages from the cellars of a family-run winery. As if thai weren't sacrilege enough, a woman is found dead in the vineyards. Judge Antoine Verlaque, the sleuth in this civilized series, discharges his professional duties with discretion. But we're here to taste the wines, which are discussed by experts like Hippolyte Thébaud, a former wine thief, and served in beautiful settings like a 300-year-old stone farmhouse. So many bottles, so many lovely views. A reader might be forgiven for feeling woozy. Be it true crime or flashy fiction, summer vacation reading should never be seen as virtuous.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 2, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
This mystery set in Aix-en-Provence, the third in Longworth's Verlaque and Bonnet series, starts with the owner of a renowned winery in Provence realizing that many bottles of wine, some dating as far back as 1929, have been stolen from his cellar. He tries to settle down by touching an ancient object that has comforted him from the time he was a boy, an aquatic fossil in the form of a scallop shell, embedded in the cellar wall. Longworth's description of this vineyard fossil, common in an area once under the deep sea, and her characterizations of the qualities of different wines are the kind of details that make this series riveting, along with the quirky characters of Aix-en-Provence judge Antoine Verlaque; his girlfriend and co-sleuth, law professor Marine Bonnet; and Police Commissioner Bruno Paulik. But these kinds of enlivening details are, unfortunately, much scarcer here than in the previous two Verlaque and Bonnet stories. The plot, involving murder and grievous bodily harm to several women, is the strong point this time. Not quite as entrancing as earlier series entries but still satisfying for fans.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Longworth throws a variety of puzzles at investigating magistrate Antoine Verlaque and his significant other, law professor Marine Bonnet, in their enjoyable third outing (after 2012's Murder in the Rue Dumas). A few hours after Pauline d'Arras-an older woman who may be displaying the onset of Alzheimer's-disappears, her frantic husband shows up at police headquarters in Aix-en-Provence. In addition, an inventory of an always-locked wine cellar, part of a winery where a police official's wife works, reveals that someone has been looting the cellar of its most precious contents. Finally, a 28-year-old bank employee, Suzanne Montmory, is raped and severely beaten. Two of the mysteries end up involving murder, and it falls to Verlaque and Bonnet to track down the killer or killers responsible. The solutions are less interesting than the byplay between the leads, but the book's real strength is its evocation of place. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
A gentle and captivating series' third entry (after Murder in the Rue Dumas) sends Judge Antoine Verlaque and professor Marine Bonnet into the vineyards and beyond when three murders appear to be linked. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Aix and the Provence countryside provide a variety of vexations for examining magistrate Antoine Verlaque (Death at the Chateau Bremont, 2011, etc.). First it was the wine at Domaine Beauclaire. Owner Olivier Bonnard reports dozens of bottles have disappeared, some very rare and valuable. Then Gilles d'Arras reports that when he arrived home at 12:30, his wife Pauline was missing--missing!--after having met him for lunch every day for 42 years. Between a trip to Paris to consult retired wine thief Hippolyte Thbaud and a delay caused by a suicide on the TGV line, there's hardly time to investigate the rape and beating of bank clerk Suzanne Montmory. When Suzanne dies of her injuries, Verlaque and police commissioner Bruno Paulik interview her co-workers at the Bank of Provence in guilles. Still, their investigation stalls despite the best efforts of their bright young colleagues, Alain Flamant and Jules Schoelcher. Verlaque is so overwhelmed that he doesn't even notice that his partner, law professor Marine Bonnet, has grown detached and pensive. It takes a visit to the missing Pauline's sister Clothide in a cloister near Narbonne to force Verlaque to confront the ghosts of his past that cast shadows on his relationship with Marine. And it takes a second and even a third death to prompt Verlaque and Paulik to close the book on Aix's crime spree. Longworth loses some of her focus in her tangled third, whose plot twists as capriciously as Bonnard's vines.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
