New Mysteries on the Shelves (1)

From time to time, I walk downstairs to specifically look for the newest mysteries and I like to make note of the findings here. Here are two more.

Going alphabetically, Ellen Crosby's The Chardonnay Charade: a wine country mystery is the second of this series featuring Lucie Montgomery, a vineyard owner in Virginia. In this story, Lucie has her vineyard warmed by a chopper flight during a chilly May night and, unfortunately, a body is discovered near the fields.Controversial political candidate Georgia Greenwood is the dead woman and her husband--Lucie's friend and doctor, Ross--is the immediate suspect for the crime.

Determined to help Ross, Lucie investigates Georgia's death while Ross faces yet another crisis. As a Civil War buff, Ross appears to discover a letter proving that Confederate president Jefferson Davis did have prior knowledge of the upcoming (and successful) assassination attempt on President Abraham Lincoln. This news is simply jaw-dropping--particularly locally in this small Virginia town with Confederacy enthusiasts. The book is 256 pages.

Next, is Eliot Pattison's Prayer of the ragon featuring former Beijing investigator Shan Tao Yun. It is the fifth book of its series.

Currently, an exiled Chinese national, Yun resides in a secret monastery in the remote mountains of Tibet under the friendship of outlaw Buddist monks. He is summoned to a remote village to defend a comatose man from execution for two murders.
The accused man is--curiously--a Najavo Indian seeking ancestral ties between his people and the ancient Bon. As Yun and his two commrades investigate, they find additional deaths and a handfull of suspects. Pattison's book is 362 pages and includes a glossary of foreign language terms in the back.