Deadly Tasting (10 page)

Epilogue

Seated at the back of the Gravelier restaurant, Benjamin Cooker and Virgile Lanssien ordered a bottle of Pomerol, Château Beauregard, 2000. After enjoying some appetizers of salmon in puff pastry, they greedily devoured their entrées. Virgile feasted on a sea scallop fricassee with spinach in a lemon cream sauce, while Benjamin was happy with a rabbit confit embellished with prawns and a blood-orange sauce
.

When the dishes arrived, the bottle was almost empty, and they agreed to be unfaithful to their native territory and treat themselves to the caress of a Savigny-Lès-Beaune, La Dominode, a premier cru from Pavelot. They had both chosen the same main course: pigeon served with fried liver, bean sprouts, and grilled carrots, which they ate without exchanging a word.

Virgile did not order dessert and opted for a very strong coffee instead. Benjamin could not resist the promise of a dessert in the form of a cigar: a sweetly oily Cuba Libre with hints of dark chocolate. The winemaker poured himself another glass of Burgundy, discreetly loosened his belt, relaxed his stomach muscles, sank deeper into the cushioned bench seat, and rolled the cigar between his fingers.

A sad smile came across his lips.

In a single evening, Benjamin Cooker had certainly gained back half the weight he had lost on his seven-day cabbage-soup diet.

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The Winemaker Detective Series

A total epicurean immersion in French countryside and gourmet attitude with two expert winemakers turned amateur sleuths gumshoeing around wine country. The following titles are currently available in English.

Treachery in Bordeaux

The start of this wine plus crime mystery series, this journey to Bordeaux takes readers behind the scenes of a grand cru wine estate that has fallen victim to either negligence or sabotage. Winemaker turned gentleman detective Benjamin Cooker sets out to find out what happened and why. Who would want to target this esteemed estate?

www.treacheryinbordeaux.com

Grand Cru Heist

In another epicurean journey in France, wine critic Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down one night in Paris. He retreats to the region around Tours to recover. There, a flamboyant British dandy, a spectacular blue-eyed blonde, a zealous concierge, and touchy local police disturb his well-deserved rest. From the Loire Valley to Bordeaux, in between a glass of Vouvray and a bottle of Saint-Émilion, the Winemaker Detective and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and a very particular heist. Who stole those bottles of grand cru classé?

www.grandcruheist.com

Nightmare in Burgundy

In this one, the Winemaker Detective leaves his native Bordeaux to go to Burgundy for a dream wine-tasting trip to France’s other key wine-making region. Between Beaune, Dijon and Nuits-Saint-Georges, the excursion becomes a nightmare when he stumbles upon a mystery revolving around messages from another era. What do they mean? What dark secrets from the deep past are haunting the Clos de Vougeot? Does blood need to spill to sharpen people’s memory?

www.nightmareinburgundy.com

About the Authors

Noël Balen (left) and Jean-Pierre Alaux (right).

(©David Nakache)

Jean-Pierre Alaux
and
Noël Balen
came up with the Winemaker Detective over a glass of wine, of course. Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio, and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover, and won the Antonin Carême prize for his cookbook
La Truffe sur le Soufflé
, which he wrote with the chef Alexis Pélissou. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. Coauthor of the series Noël Balen 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.

About the Translator

Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her master’s 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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