**In this decadent installment, Verlaque and Bonnet find themselves hunting a murderer on a remote island in the glittering Mediterranean Sea

Provençal Mystery Series #4
Watch the series! Murder in Provence is now on Britbox.**

On-again couple Antoine Verlaque and Marine Bonnet are hoping for a relaxing holiday at the Locanda Sordou, but someone has other plans.

Hoteliers Maxime and Catherine Le Bon have spent their life savings restoring the hotel, which lies in an archipelago of sun-soaked islands off the coast of Marseille. To celebrate the grand opening, a group of privileged guests joins Verlaque and Bonnet: Marine s free-spirited best friend; an aging film star, his much-younger wife, and her disgruntled son; a pair of affable American tourists; and a querelous Parisian couple. But the murder of one of the guests casts a shadow over everyone s vacation, and things go from bad to worse when a violent storm cuts off all communication with the mainland. Will the killer strike again?

Like Donna Leon and Andrea Camilleri, M. L. Longworth enchants mystery lovers with a taste for good food and gorgeous landscapes in this installment of her acclaimed mystery series.

A charming read with a well-crafted mystery and characters as rich and full-bodied as a Bordeaux. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Praise for M. L. Longworth’s Provençal Mystery series
 
“The Verlaque and Bonnet mysteries . . . plunge you into a languid world of epicurean pleasures and good living.” —Eleanor Beardsley, NPR
 
“Beguiling . . . Longworth evokes the pleasures of France in delicious detail—great wine, delicious meals, and fine company.” —Publishers Weekly

**Praise for Murder on the Île Sordou
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“Charming.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

“Thoroughly delightful . . . Longworth deftly handles what is in effect a locked-room mystery, but the book’s real strength lies in the backstories she creates for each of the distinctive characters. The puzzle’s answer, buried in the past, is well prepared by what has come before.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Longworth once again immerses readers in French culture with this whodunit, which will delight Francophiles and fans of Donna Leon and Andrea Camilleri. The setting will also appeal to readers who enjoy trapped-on-the-island mysteries in the tradition of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” —Library Journal

“Longworth’s novels, set in the south of France, are mysteries for foodies, with the plot providing a table upon which the enchanting meals and accompanying wines are served.” —Booklist

“[A] charming read with a well-crafted mystery and characters as rich and full-bodied as a Bordeaux.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A splendid read.” —Mystery Scene

“The best thing about each novel in this series is that they are as much about lifestyle in the south of France as they are about a legal tangle, a disappearance or a murder. . . . By this third [novel] in the series, Longworth, shows the reader why those who love Donna Leon’s Brunetti and Martin Walker’s Bruno take up her novels with enthusiasm.” —Kings River Life Magazine

“Longworth’s maritime version of a country-house cozy offers genuine pleasures.” —*Kirkus Reviews
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Praise for Death in the Vines*
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“Judge Antoine Verlaque, the sleuth in this civilized series, discharges his professional duties with discretion. But we’re here to taste the wines, which are discussed by experts like Hippolyte Thebaud, a former wine thief, and served in beautiful settings like a 300-year-old stone farmhouse. So many bottles, so many lovely views. A reader might be forgiven for feeling woozy.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

“Though the plot is hair-raising, what keeps you glued to this mystery is its vivid portrait of everyday life in Aix, which deftly juxtaposes the elegance of the city . . . with quotidian woes and pleasures.” —Oprah.com

“As much as the mystery intrigues—in this case some intertwined crimes involving a local winery, a missing elderly woman, and a rich man’s suspicious construction project—what really makes Longworth’s books enjoyable are the atmosphere and details that she includes of the South of France.” —The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“What follows is a lovely, almost cozy police procedural that deserves to be read with a glass of wine in hand. Longworth paints such a loving picture of Provence that it’s likely you’ll start planning a vacation trip to France the moment you set the book down.” —The Denver Post

“This is an intelligently written police procedural with the warm comfort of a baguette with banon cheese.” —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

“Enjoyable . . . the book’s real strength is its evocation of place.” —Publishers Weekly

Autorentext

M. L. Longworth

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

Chapter One

From here he could see La Canebière rolling straight down into the old port, splitting the downtown into two equal parts, as though someone had drawn a line in the sand with a stick. It made sense that the main street would dump into water, for it had once been La Lacydon, a river. Eric Monnier tried to balance his hip against the handrails of the boat in order to relight what was left of his cigar. He noticed that the farther out from Marseille they got, the more the mountains behind the city seemed bigger, as if they were pushing—thrusting—the city into the sea. Funny, he thought, when you’re in the city you don’t notice the white chalky limestone hills. You only hear the beeping car horns, the cry of seagulls, and see the dust, and smell the sea, and dirt. He knew that Marseille made no attempt to fancy itself up for tourists, and each time he returned to the place where he was born it took him a few days to learn to love it again.

Lacydon had been his first and only book of poetry, written in the early 1960s when he was twenty-two and published on a shoestring by a friend in Arles. It was an ode to Marseille, and its history, its bright light, and its fast-talking inhabitants. He had sold a dozen or so copies at weekend flea markets and then had given out the rest to friends and family. He still had a cardboard box under his bed with the proofs—typed by the older sister of a friend—and five remaining copies of the slim, elegant tome.

With the nonsuccess of his poetry Monnier took a job at a high school in Aix-en-Provence teaching French literature, just until, he initially hoped, his poetry took off. An elderly great-aunt on his father’s side died and gave the apartment in Aix’s Quartier Mazarin to her great-nephew. He still lived there, surrounded by wealth: his neighbors being a count and countess (below) and a Parisian architect (above). And here he was, one month newly retired from that same job and same high school, never having put his poems into book form again. His new poems were now written out, in longhand, in black bound books that he bought at Michel’s on the Cours Mirabeau. He knew that the staff at Michel’s called him “Le Poète” as soon as he left the shop, and he didn’t mind.

Monnier’s eyes watered as he looked at Marseille. He had always loved the port, its golden stone medieval for…