Review: An Unholy Alliance (Emma Golden Mysteries #1) by Judy Nedry

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 402 KB
• Print Length: 336 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: iUniverse (May 19 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005O07GEE

Book Description

NE PAIRS BEST WITH MURDER?
An Unholy Alliance introduces Emma Golden, a self-styled has-been who is invited to write a book on her beloved Oregon wine country, and manage a bed and breakfast for a friend. All seems ideal until Emma encounters her verbally abusive ex-husband, Dwight McCourt, shortly after settling in at the B&B. She discovers that she still harbors unresolved feelings for him.
Other characters crowd onto the scene, all wanting to be included in Emma’s upcoming wine book. Most prominent among them is Ted Maxell, a bombastic and unpopular newcomer to Oregon, and the owner of the showy Cougar Crossing Winery. Ted invites Emma to a gathering at his winery, where the story quickly turns sideways. By the end of the evening, Ted is found floating in a vat of fermenting pinot noir, his trousers bunched around his ankles.
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Like many women in their fifties, Emma Golden feels invisible. She lives quietly in her Portland, Oregon bungalow and minds her own business. But her tranquil life is about to change. She is asked to return to the rolling hills of her former wine country home south of the city to supervise a friend's bed and breakfast inn near Dundee. Emma arrives at the Westerly Inn during grape harvest. She is under contract to write a book about Oregon wineries, and it's business as usual until she discovers one of her subjects dead in a wine vat-murdered at his own dinner party.

Cougar Crossing Winery owner Ted Maxell was a ruthless and dishonest newcomer to the northern Willamette Valley wine scene. Many people wanted him gone-including his son, many local winegrowers, and even Emma's ex-husband, Dwight. Then Maxell's daughter, Tiffany, calls Emma and begs for assistance. "I know who killed my father," she wails. When Emma answers Tiffany's cry for help, she finds herself drawn into the search for a murderer or murderers with secrets worth killing for.

About the Author

 Judy Nedry graduated University of Oregon with a degree in journalism and spent more than 20 years documenting the growth of the Pacific Northwest wine and food industries. She parlays this experience, plus her knowledge of small rural communities, into the Emma Golden Mystery Series which debuted in 2009 with "An Unholy Alliance" set in the vineyard-covered hills southwest of Portland, Oregon. The second in the series, "The Difficult Sister," is set on the remote southern Oregon coast. It was released in November, 2013.

The author resides in Portland, Oregon.

From the author:
"I specialize in lost causes, long friendships, and living well when I am able. The last award I won was in 1970; I can’t even pick up a couple bucks from a lottery scratch-it. I love anything to do with words, and always have. It’s a disease. Like my main character, Emma Golden, I’m a real dullard at a party. But I know a lot about food and wine and dark nights of the soul.


I grew up in a home where we were expected to find our own entertainment--riding bikes, disappearing into the woods to build forts...or just wander, stealing the neighbors' berries, lolling by the lake or reading Classic comic books on hot summer afternoons, eavesdropping on conversations at our mostly dysfunctional family events,and later just eavesdropping. And of course, reading. There was always a book around.

It is natural I became a story teller because I love stories. At college I started out as an English major, and then switched to journalism because it seemed to make sense.

As a journalist I became a better listener. As a wine and food writer I discovered an world of pleasures beyond my wildest imaginings. You see, I'd grown up in small towns. Where I came from, people didn't eat fine food or drink wine. I literally fell off a turnip truck! But I always knew there was more out there because I read books.

In addition to writing, I have worked in strawberry fields and onion fields, shipped potatoes and onions all over the continental United States, taken a summer job as secretary for a small town attorney, spent a month in New York as a guest editor for Mademoiselle magazine, served as managing editor for a small alternative magazine in the early 1970s, become a stock broker (a big mistake for someone like me!), helped found a vineyard and winery, co-founded a wine and food magazine, and traveled all over the world. I even ran a farmers' market for six months, carhopped at an A&W rootbeer stand, volunteered at a college theatre (and was smitten), married and bore two children.

All the while reading, loving, devouring mysteries, spy novels, thrillers, and suspense...."

Find out more at: www.judynedry.com


My Review

 An Unholy Alliance is the first book in the Emma Golden Mystery series by author Judy Nedry. It is a fast-paced, easy to read book. I can relate to Emma Golden as she is in her fifties. She is dealing with feeling invisible as sometimes happens in our middle years when her life takes an adventurous turn. She agrees to help at a friend's bed and breakfast and at the same time she is working on a nonfiction book about the blossoming Oregon wine industry.

Emma is invited to winery owner Ted Maxwell's party and before the party is over Maxwell is dead..found floating in a vat of pinot noir! There are lots of interesting characters...including many who have good reason to want Ted Maxwell dead. An Unholy Alliance seems like a cozy mystery at first what with the bed and breakfast and winery elements but it actually delves into some grim themes.

Great read. I'm looking forward to reading Emma's next adventure: The Difficult Sister.