NOBLE ROT is a mystery set in 1900, the glitzy Belle Époque, when Paris and Bordeaux were awash with money, art and sin. Blooming banking and industry gave rise to a new kind of aristocrats who replaced those guillotined only a century ago. They built chateaux, took up fencing and paraded with expensive courtesans while their wives languished in stultifying boredom. What strikes me about the Gilded Age is the gap between rich and poor. What if the poor had been paid just a little more? In the first tome of the Vine Saga, we met Godin, an industrialist who paid his workers above the going rate and profited from it. To this day, Godin is seen as a visionary and his wonderful Versailles of the North (in Laon) is a joy to visit. In Noble Rot, our hero, Ricar (the antagonist in the first two tomes) mends his ways, but finds himself stymied when he attempts to pay his workers a fair wage. Noble rot is the name of a fungus, Botrytis Cinerea, which coats grapes to produce a sweet wine. The rot is the hypocrisy and greed of the local nobility who, since they can't bribe Ricar, gang up against him, threaten his grape harvest and do everything they can to protect their sinful decaying lifestyle.