Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish (USA 2015)

From the Publisher:
To save his winery, independently wealthy actor and former PI Michael Spraggue investigates a Napa Valley slaying
Shooting on location in Boston for a new film, Michael Spraggue has just tumbled down a flight of stairs when a call comes in from California. On the line is Kate Holloway, Michael’s on-again-off-again lover and partner in a fledgling California winery. It’s harvest time and their winemaker has disappeared. Right after Kate reported him missing, the police found a corpse on their property, the victim so savagely murdered that identification is close to impossible. Now Kate is in jail.

Soon after Michael arrives in Napa, a second body turns up and the police become convinced that Kate is the killer. To save his winery and free his girl, Michael will have to find the real killer before the harvest comes in.

Bitter Finish is the 2nd book in the Michael Spraggue Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish. A Michael Spraggue Mystery. Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504014502 (July, 2015), eBook, 1.28 MB (ca. 198 p.), $7.99.

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
A little bit tart...
A little bit cloying...
A little bit dead...

The tablecloth was stained with wine, the Oriental rug was sprinkled with crumbs, and the wine critic's wife was getting bombed. For Michael Spraggue, vineyard owner, actor, and sometime private eye, the wine tasting was more proof that Napa Valley was fertile ground for some of the world's oddest people. And among them, Michael knew, was at least one murderer.

Michael had come from Boston to find his co-owner and part-time lover, Kate, under suspicion of murder and his temperamental winemaker, Lenny Brent, vanished. Trying to link Lenny's disappearance to an unidentified corpse led Michael to another dead man, an angry duster of egotistical vintners, and Lenny's ripe little lover. But before Spraggue can make the connection between an insouciant little Cabernet and an outrageous lie, he was in for one more surprise: another taste of blood...

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish. A Michael Spraggue Mystery. Dell Books, ISBN: 0440216060 (January, 1995), 262 p., $4.99.

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
Michael Spraggue, a wealthy private eye turned movie actor, is in the middle of making a trashy Hollywood movie about -- what else? -- a private eye, when he gets a phone call from his sometime lover and current business partner in a California winery, Kate Holloway.

Kate has troubling news. Not only has Lenny Brent, their volatile winemaker, vanished, but an unidentifiable corpse has appeared -- and Kate's the prime suspect!

Spraggue hurries over in time to discover a second dead body -- that of Lenny. Can Spraggue solve this vintage mystery before he finds himself corked?

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish. Murder at a Vineyard. A Michael Spraggue Mystery. Fawcett Crest, ISBN: 0449206904 (Febuary, 1991), 196 p., $4.95.

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish (USA 1983)

From the Publisher:
Bitter Finish uncorks a robust, vintage mystery set in the wine-growing country of the Napa Valley. Michael Sprague has let his private investigator's license expire after finding more congenial work acting in Hollywood films, but when Kate, his old flame and current business partner at Holloway Hills Vineyards, is held for murder, Spraggue returns to the field unwillingly.

Rushing into a past of unsorted memories, Spraggue finds the valley changed. As corporate buy-outs of local vineyards blossom into a thirst for easy money, he picks up the scent of corrup- tion drifting over the valley's fruitful soil. Wherever he looks for answers -- from elegant wine tastings to the county jail -- Spraggue finds evasions and lies. And Kate stirs his instincts and clouds his judgement, even as he sénses her deception.

Bitter Finish flows smoothly through the world of lush wine estates and refined tastes, where all seems as civil- ized as fine wine -- until the finest winemakers start to die.

Linda Barnes: Bitter Finish. A Michael Spraggue Mystery. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983, ISBN: 0312082363, 183 p., $11.95.