For those readers who like me maybe struggled with the beginning of this series, I'd suggest to start with book #4 as I feel the stories got a bit more entertaining and easier to follow. Like its predecessors this one also takes us the beautiful french countryside but this time we get to experience the world of cognac making with the backdrop of murder. I think what made me enjoy this one a bit more than previous books was the fact that Benjamin Cooker's assistant Virgile gets to shine here. This one is for fans of cozy mysteries in beautiful settings.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Le French Book for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

An easy afternoon read of of this charming book about wine making in the true French-English tradition. You can finish it in an afternoon while settling in a lounge chair in a sweet spot in the garden. The plot is not very complex and does not demand too much attention while reading and the character development is fairly standard. Easy to please and undemanding.

I am reading everything I can find by this author now. The book was well paced and I enjoyed the protagonist very much. Will be looking forward to more in this series.

This is the fifth installment in the Winemaker Detective series featuring (fictional) renowned wine expert Benjamin Cooker, set in France. The heirs to one of the oldest Cognac estates in France call in Cooker when they face a hostile takeover by foreign investors.

There is a passable mystery, but the appeal of the series is the wine and the setting, and would be particularly interesting to oenophiles, or Francophiles with an interest in wine-making.

I suspect that each entry in this series stands well alone.

I received a complimentary ecopy of Cognac Conspiracies from the publisher. This did not affect my review.

3 stars