TILL DEATH DO US PORT

Murder messes up a family wedding.

Colorado winemaker Parker Valentine is well aware that not everything is going smoothly at her cousin Emma’s nuptials. Emma’s mom and stepmom can barely be civil to each other, and Josie, one of her two bridesmaids, falls into hysterics at the drop of a hat because she can’t forget that her own bridegroom left her at the altar. But when Prynne Pearsall, the obnoxious wedding planner Emma’s stepmom insisted on hiring, is found dead in the ballroom just before the start of the ceremony, chaos rises to a whole new level. Parker responds as the genre demands: She shrugs aside advice from the police and her family not to investigate on her own, and her sleuthing amps up as the police zero in on her relatives as prime suspects. She’s also presented with the requisite romantic distractions. Now that her boyfriend, Reid, is in Napa Valley scouting locations for a second restaurant, Parker wonders whether their relationship will withstand even intermittent separations. Like her setting, Lansing’s prose has its highs and lows. She establishes a strong sense of place with evocative descriptions of Boulder’s majestic scenery but drops in misused words and phrases that may leave some readers scratching their heads. (Parker describes her Syrah as “the perfect companion for mulled wine, or in the summer, sangria” and asserts that her winery “erupt[s] into a fervor of whispers.”)

No surprises, a few miscues, but some genuine pleasures.