Welcome to Litsy!

Twenty-nine-year-old NYPD detective Max Maguire flies to France to attend her friend Chloe Marceau�s wedding at a grand estate in the Valley of the Marne in Champagne, an hour and a half east of Paris. She meets the older and more urbane Olivier Chaumont, a juge d�instruction, or examining magistrate, and experiences a fairy tale evening. But when Chloe�s widowed aunt, the beautiful and successful Lea de Saint-Pern, is found murdered after the wedding dinner, Max and Olivier are shocked back into their respective professional roles. But to Max�s chagrin, Olivier is put in charge of the investigation and she is banned from an official investigative role. The value of vineyards and champagne companies is at an all-time high, and Olivier learns that there are several people attempting to gain control of Lea�s business at the time of her death. Max, with her quintessential American girl next door look (belying a gritty interior), takes a stealthier approach. Quietly using the sleuthing skills inherited from her famous detective dad, she insinuates herself into the victim�s family until their long-held secrets begin to spill out like marbles from an overturned dish. After another family member is found dead on the day of Lea�s funeral, however, Max puts her career, and her tentative relationship with Olivier, in jeopardy as her determination to find the murderer�and prove herself in the process�takes over. While sipping the finest beverage in the world and tasting food that leaves the reader salivating between interrogations and pursuits, the bi-cultural detective duo come to discover that they are unbeatable when it comes to bringing criminals to justice.