A Poisonous Pour (Cece Barton Mystery #3)
by Maddie Day
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f
Blurb:
Since moving from L.A. to California’s verdant wine country, widowed single mom Cece Barton has gone from Colinas wine bar manager to wine bar owner—with a chaser of sleuthing . . .It’s Memorial Day weekend and Sonoma County’s Alexander Valley is buzzing with activity. For Cece, business at Vino y Vida is going great, as is her romance with new beau, Benjamin. Meanwhile, Cece’s neighbor, Richard Flora, is stirring up controversy with his newest article, an exposé of Regan Greene, power-hungry director of a valley district organization. Also in the mix is the town’s big classic car show, paired with wine tastings . . .
At the show, Cece spots Regan, who is displaying her restored green ’72 Thunderbird convertible. As Cece pours tastes, she witnesses several heated discussions with Regan—including an argument with wine afficionado and new Colinas hardware store owner Greg Jardis. Otherwise, all goes smoothly—until Sunday brings shocking news. Regan has been murdered . . .
Rumors fly that Richard may have orchestrated the homicide—or even committed it. But Cece knows that’s absurd. And others in Cece’s orbit seem to have discomfiting connections to Regan, from Cece’s employee, Dane, to her winemaking teacher’s sister, Yolanda, to Colinas Mayor Guittierez. And after Yolanda visits the wine bar, Benjamin says he recognizes her from a road race.
Determined to clear Richard’s name, and failing to extract any clues from detectives, Cece once again enlists her twin, Allie, as her partner-in-sleuthing. But they’ll have to act quickly, before the trail goes sour . . .
My Review
I received a free copy from the publisher through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.
I really like Maddie Day’s writing and this series is really good so far, so I was very excited to get my hands on the third book in this series. A Poisonous Pour follows Cece as she gets involved in another mystery, a much disliked women dies and her neighbor recently wrote an article about her power hungry ways. Cece knows her neighbor Richard isn’t the killer and gets involved trying to figure out who is.
I really like this series so far and enjoyed returning to Colinas and reading about Cece and her friends and family again. The mystery in this one kept me guessing, there were some suspects and new information that came to light throughout, but most of them stayed a plausible suspects until the end. I was a bit disappointed Cece wasn’t the one who figured it out as the killer confronted it, but it was a solid mystery.
While I enjoy the mystery, what really makes this series for me is the characters and the daily life scenes. I really enjoy reading about Cece, seeing her interact with her friends and family and reading about her daily life. It’s just so cozy and comforting and I really enjoy it. There are some new characters that gets introduced in this one, among which one I think will stay Cece’s friend. There’s also more about Cece’s romance and some sweet scenes involving them.
To summarize: Another solid installment in this series. I really like reading about Cece and her friends and family. The mystery kept me guessing with plenty of suspects, but I wasn’t sure who did it. The reveal made sense, but the killer confronted Cece instead of her figuring it out, which I prefer. I especially like reading about Cece and her daily life and seeing her interact with the other characters. I really enjoyed this one and really like the author’s writing.
This looks and sounds like it would be a good read.
That’s great it has good characters and that they seem to be just as important to the stories as the mysteries. Glad the mystery was good too though, even if it didn’t work out quite how you wanted.