SHARP SHOOTER

Sunny McCoskey is living your basic Northern California daydream. She runs her own little café in Napa Valley, where she cooks fresh pasta and drinks espresso with a splash of red wine or hangs out with her friends, who also lead halcyon lives of wine-making, importing, whatever. Sunny’s best friend, Wade Skord, the owner of a small, though of course excellent, winery, rends the fabric of this Shangri-La when he’s arrested for the murder of Jack Beroni, crown prince of Beroni Vineyards, a large commercial operation adjoining Wade’s more elitist grounds. The cops think Wade is the perp who shot tuxedo-wearing Jack in the dark at the Beroni gazebo because, along with violently disagreeing with Beroni, he also plays Assault Golf, a nocturnal game involving a rifle, a nightscope, and fluorescent golf balls. Naturally, Sunny begins her own investigation, which uncovers a host of reasons for someone to shoot arrogant Jack. For generations, the Beroni family has relied heavily on the blue-collar Campaglia family. Unlike their elderly father, Gabe and Alex Campaglia resent la famiglia Beroni—particularly Jack, who supported spraying pesticide county-wide to control the glassy-winged sharpshooter, an insect that threatens the Valley with a disease deadly to grape vines, over the objections of the Campaglias and other residents and organic farmers like Ben and Claire Baker, Sunny’s restaurant suppliers.

Long on Napa Valley culture, short on logical deduction. The heroine’s nickname perfectly suits Gordon’s pleasant debut.