Ellen Crosby - Free Library Land Online

Multiple Exposure

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:55:49 +0200

The Chardonnay Charade

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:00:59 +0200

The Bordeaux Betrayal

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:00:57 +0200

Bitter Roots

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 11:50:48 +0300

The Angels' Share

Mon, 18 Feb 2019 13:55:47 +0200

Ellen Crosby pours up another corking mystery with The Angels' Share, a mystery with secret societies, murder, and, of course, wine.

When Lucie Montgomery attends a Thanksgiving weekend party for friends and neighbors at Hawthorne Castle, an honest-to-goodness castle owned by the Avery family, the last great newspaper dynasty in America and owner of the Washington Tribune, she doesn't suspect the festive occasion will end in death.

During the party, Prescott Avery, the 95-year-old family patriarch, invites Lucie to his fabulous wine cellar to tell her he wants to buy a priceless cache of 210-year-old Madeira which her great-great-uncle, a Prohibition bootlegger, found hidden in the US Capitol in the 1920s. Lucie knows nothing about the precious cache of wine and tells Prescott she believes her father either sold or drank it. By the end of the party, Prescott is found dead in his wine cellar—apparently after an accidental fall that caused...

Blow Up

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 14:41:55 +0300

Photojournalist Sophie Medina must figure out how the death of a Supreme Court justice and the murder of a homeless man are related before she becomes an assailant's next target.

International photojournalist Sophie Medina and her old school friend Father Jack O'Hara are out for a run on Capitol Hill when they find the body of Associate Supreme Court Justice Everett Townsend lying in an alley, barely alive. Townsend, a diabetic, later dies in the ER from complications due to hypoglycemia.
His tragic death has unexpected repercussions for Sophie when Javi, a young homeless man of Sophie's acquaintance, is murdered. Before he died, Javi told her a shocking story about Townsend that could have a devastating impact on the nation's highest court – and on the American justice system – if word got out.
Unable to persuade anyone that what she learned is true and on the run from whoever is protecting Townsend's dark secret, Sophie...

Dodge and Burn

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:06:06 +0300

Washington, D.C.-based photojournalist Sophie Medina is not a murderer - but someone is determined to make sure she goes down for a crime she did not commit in this gripping mystery.

When billionaire philanthropist and art collector Robson Blake hires Sophie Medina to take photographs for him, she doesn't expect to show up and find her client dead. It seems he was the victim of a burglary gone wrong. But why was his state-of-the-art security system turned off . . . and why, in a house full of priceless Old Masters, is the only thing missing a beautiful but insignificant Ukrainian religious icon?

Before long, Sophie finds herself in the crosshairs of a D.C. homicide detective who suspects she knows more than she is saying about Blake's murder – and he's not wrong. To Sophie's mixed delight and horror, she's recently learned she has a half-brother . . . who might also be an international art thief, with eyes on Blake's...

The Riesling Retribution

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 09:01:00 +0200

Ghost Image

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:55:50 +0200

The French Paradox

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 13:55:45 +0200

Lucie Montgomery's discovery of her grandfather's Parisian romance unlocks a series of shocking secrets in the gripping new Wine Country mystery.
In 1949, during her junior year abroad in Paris, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis bought several inexpensive paintings of Marie-Antoinette by a little-known 18th century female artist. She also had a romantic relationship with Virginia vineyard owner Lucie Montgomery's French grandfather - until recently, a well-kept secret.
Seventy years later, Cricket Delacroix, Lucie's neighbor and Jackie's schoolfriend, is donating the now priceless paintings to a Washington, DC museum. And Lucie's grandfather is flying to Virginia for Cricket's 90th birthday party, hosted by her daughter Harriet. A washed-up journalist, Harriet is rewriting a manuscript Jackie left behind about Marie-Antoinette and her portraitist. She's also adding tell-all details about Jackie, sure to make the book a bestseller.
Then on the eve of the party a...

The Viognier Vendetta

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:55:51 +0200

The Merlot Murders

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 09:01:01 +0200

The Sauvignon Secret

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 13:55:48 +0200

The Chardonnay Charade wcm-2

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:28:43 +0200

Making a go of the family's Virginia vineyard after her father's death (in The Merlot Murders, 2006) would be hard enough for amateur sleuth Lucie Montgomery, even without an occasional dead body turning up. First Georgia Greenwood, controversial aspiring politician and second wife of the local doctor, is found dead at the edge of the vineyard, disfigured by chemicals used on the vines; then the young man alleged to be her lover disappears. Lucie finds motives abounding among the locals as she seeks the truth, but she's also concerned about losing her brash but capable head winemaker, worried about her younger sister's binge drinking, and becoming involved with a rich Brit who wants to buy a vineyard. This second entry in Crosby's series is nicely plotted and paced until the too-abrupt ending, when a previously sensible if overinquisitive Lucie goes alone to confront the murderer. But what might otherwise be a pedestrian mystery stands out because of its Civil War–based local history and winemaking detail.