Champagne: The Farewell

Janet Hubbard works as a writer and editor in Fayston, Vermont, and teaches fiction writing at the University of Vermont. This series is the result of annual trips to France over a twenty-year span to visit French friends, and a love of wine and the wine culture that led to extensive stays in some of the wine districts, including Champagne and Bordeaux.

NYPD detective Max Maguire flies to France to attend her friend Chloe Marceau's wedding. 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 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, 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.