Till Death Do Us Port
Colorado Wine Mystery #4
By Kate Lansing
ISBN 9780593546277
Author’s website: katelansing.com
Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Daniele
Synopsis:
When a wedding reception turns into a crime scene, young vintner Parker Valentine investigates the full-bodied problem, in this captivating Colorado-set cozy mystery series.
It’s June in Boulder, Colorado, and wedding season is in full swing. Parker Valentine is excited to attend the wedding of her favorite cousin, Emma, where in addition to celebrating the happy couple, she’ll also be providing the refreshments for the reception from her winery. But when the fussy wedding planner is found dead midway through the ceremony, Parker knows that to get the weekend back on track, she’ll need to unveil a murderer.
Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of high tension and hot tempers during a wedding, so Parker has a long list of potential suspects. Even worse, her entire family has fixated on the state of Parker’s relationship with her boyfriend, Reid. If Parker can manage to impress her relatives with her wine skills and dodge unwanted pointed personal questions, solving a murder will be the icing on the cake. (Goodreads)
Review:
A wedding, wine, family dynamics, and murder come together to make a delightfully entertaining read in author Kate Lansing’s fourth Colorado Wine Mystery Till Death Do Us Port.
Vintner Parker Valentine is all set to provide refreshments for her cousin Emma’s wedding reception, but things go awry when the wedding planner is murdered before the couple can exchange vows. Solving this mystery will be harder than pairing wine and cheese, but Parker feels she must get to the bottom of things so that couple can finally have their happily ever after.
I like this series quite a bit; the wine premise is interesting, the mysteries complex, and the protagonist Parker is intelligent and quite spunky. The other characters are well drawn and relatable (for the most part). I really enjoyed Parker and her mother’s camaraderie in this installment. Reid is out of the action this time, and, though he and Parker chatted by phone often, I missed him. Lansing does a great job of weaving wine tidbits throughout the story without losing continuity. My only problem with the writing is that it is present tense, which I do not care for, but this by no means deters my enjoyment of the book.
There are plenty of suspects for Parker to interrogate, and her innate curiosity (nosiness) makes her a good sleuth. Twists and turns abound, and I did not figure out whodunit until late in the book. What a tangled web we weave….
Till Death Do Us Port is cozy mystery writing at its best. Highly recommended.
