Murder Will Travel

This is a great first book in a new mystery series! The setting is the wine country of Sonoma County, California. Lynne Montgomery is a travel agent who is personally leading a tour group through a week of wineries, picnics, and hot air balloons in the gorgeous wine country. On the first morning of the tour, a dead body is found on the premises of the winery where the group is staying. As other reviewers have noted, the mystery itself is well done and leads to a satisfying conclusion.The unravelling of this story reminded me very much of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express", in the way that the reader learns more about the possible suspects bit by bit. I loved the ensemble cast, and the author did a great job of fleshing out the characters.Ms. Toll also did a fantastic job of describing the Sonoma County area. I lived there 20 years ago, and reliving her place descriptions added to my enjoyment of the book.All in all, a wonderful read that makes me anticipate more book in this series!

This book kept you reading. The ending wasn't expected. I would recommend this book.

Lynne Montgomery is leading one of her favorite tours, the Sonoma Sojourn. This year, she has 15 guests who will be enjoying the best Sonoma County has to offer, from wine to history and scenery. But when the former owner of the winery they're using as home base is found dead, Lynne suddenly has her hands full. The police find links from the dead man to her guests. Meanwhile, Lynne is trying to keep the tour going and make sure everyone is having a good time. Unless this murder gets solved quickly and quietly, it'll be very bad for business.I enjoyed this debut novel in a new series. Having grown up in Sonoma County, I had a very fun time watching the characters go from one landmark I've visited to another. The characters were interesting and pulled me in. There's a cheat sheet before the book starts that lists all the travelers in the story, and I used it frequently for the first few chapters to keep everyone straight. But once I got into the story, I found the characters had come alive enough that I didn't need to refer to that page any more. The only down side was the plot. The murder often seemed to take a back seat to the sub-plots involving the characters on the tour. Still, the story does advance consistently, and the author's choice to tell the story from multiple characters' viewpoints adds much to the overall effect.Lynne Montgomery is a great new character in a potentially great series. A little tightening of the plot will make this series rise above other cozies. Either way, I'm already planning to book passage on the next trip in this series.

Lynne is the fifty something widow who runs Booked for Travel, a travel agency in Floritas, CA. She is escorting a group on the annual Sonoma Sorjourners tour. This is a tour of the Sonoma wineries and the surrounding area. They are to stay at the magnificent Villa Belleduce. The Villa formerly housed a b and b, but was now the private home of a Silicon Valley billionaire and his family. Lynne was lucky to convince them to honor her reservation. The group seems to meld together well, except for the wealthy attorney, Hake, and his trophy wife, Heidi. During the social hour on the first night, the former owner, Lance Belleduce, shows up and makes everyone uncomfortable. The next day, Lynne finds him dead on the grounds. Lance is very handsome, and very unpopular in some quarters, but who hated him enough to kill him?This is a very enjoyable mystery. The premise of a tour group enables the author to really mix up her characters and she really does this well. Her descriptions of the California wine country are very vivid and her characters surprisingly well developed in a short period of time. I can't wait to read the next one.

Fifty two years old Lynne Montgomery uses the insurance money from her husband's death to buy the Booked for Travel agency. She leaves Florida for Sonoma County, California wine country where she meets her first group of travelers. Instead of a quiet trek, the idyllic tour turns vinegary when Lynne finds the corpse of Lance Belladuce, whose family once owned Villa Belladuce. Detective Lauren Shaw investigates the homicide, which enables Lynne and her fifteen "guests" to be ahead of schedule. Next someone ruins much of the villa's wine. This is followed by another murder that finally sends the itinerary over the edge and a desperate Lynne into making inquiries into what happened to her tour. Though the look into California wine country is charming and the amateur sleuth investigation side by side with the police procedural is entertaining, the key that makes MURDER WILL TRAVEL fun is the ensemble cast. Lynne serves as more than just the lead protagonist of the plot, as she is the nucleus that keeps the tale on the main path. The support characters have distinct personalities so that the reader knows whose who, which is quite an accomplishment when dealing with a crew of eighteen secondary people making many appearances mostly together. Fans of amateur sleuth stories will enjoy Emily Toll's "guided tour" book.Harriet Klausner