Sour Grapes

Shakespeare in the Vineyard #2

by Carole Price

"When the home security alarm awakens Cait in the middle of the night‚ she assumes there are bugs in the new system and has it checked out the next day. When the security company technician arrives‚ he finds a halberd -- a Shakespearean weapon -- and a knife on the ground‚ which are construed as evidence of an attempted break-in. Cait recognizes the knife. It's the same military combat knife found on Hank Dillon‚ the bank robber she shot and killed two years ago while on duty as a cop in Ohio.



Sour Grapes is a fast-paced novel of suspense. Cait and Navy SEAL Royal Tanner reconnect romantically and her Shakespearean plays go on as scheduled.

"

Genres: Mystery

330 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 2014

About the author

Carole is a Buckeye! Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She attended The Ohio State University and worked for a national laboratory in northern California before turning to writing mysteries. She graduated from Livermore's Citizens Police Academy and is a police volunteer. Her writing companion is Shilo, an adorable 10-pound mixed terrier.

Carole is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She and her husband reside in the San Francisco Bay Area in the middle of wine country.

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will have to reread this after I read the first book in the series. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of a vineyard with a Shakespeare theater. Is there really such a thing?

[Madison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Official disclosure: I got this book for free through Goodreads First Reads. Thanks!

Sour Grapes wasn't bad, but it was just okay. It took a long plane ride for me to finally get through this, and not because it's particularly long. It's because I just didn't care enough about Cait. Some of this may be because I didn't realize this was the second book in a series until I started reading it, so I'll assume that the missing pieces in relationships were due to my missing previous plot points. However, as the book went on, I just couldn't get interested in the relationships that were emphasized. I'd love to read more about Ilia and Fumie, and Marcus, but I don't see Cait's interest in RT. This might be because all the characters (including 10 year old Joy) started to sound alike. Also, most of the action happens around Cait, not to her. Aside from getting shot at, Cait seems happy to sit back and let the boys handle the crime solving, even though she complains about being overprotected. Honestly, Fumie seems to get all the interesting action, and even with that, the climax was...anticlimactic. All the bad guys go from threatening and mysterious to dead or in handcuffs in the last 15 pages or so. The pacing is off in other ways too, especially in that there's a lot of repetition, both of general content (e.g. explaining the minimalist Macbeth at least three times) and of specific phrases, leading to an extended feeling of deja vu.

On the whole, Sour Grapes really isn't a bad book. It just could do so much better.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book and now I'll have to get Twisted Vines to see what I missed. Cait is an ex-cop who has inherited a Vineyard/Theater in Livermore, CA. A security alarm wakes her in the middle of the night, and the next day a Shakespearean weapon is discovered outside of her home. Cait recognized it as the weapon that was recovered from Hank Dillon, a bank robber she had shot and killed when she was an Ohio policewoman. Between coordinating the play she is currently running at her theaters, keeping the actors safe and trying to discover who left the knife and is now stalking her, she has her plate full. It wasn't too easy to figure out the killer, yes, one of the actors is killed, and I enjoyed the characters that Carole has created. I'm looking forward to catching up and keeping up with this series.

[Sherrie Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first Shakespeare in the Vineyard books when I was searching the new books section in the library for something different, and I loved it. This, her second book, is not as good as her first, but it's still an enjoyable mystery. Cait is adjusting to her new life, but her old one comes back to haunt her.

[Sandra Clippinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was excellent book. At one point, I thought all of the characters could have done.
But there is one mystery left, who was Cait's father. I guess we will never know.

[Fred Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plot of Carole Price's first novel, "Twisted Vines", thickens as Cait and R.T. face imminent danger and the threat of closing Cait's Shakespearean Theater. Again, with painstaking detail, the author weaves a story that captivates the reader.
"Sour Grapes" is an entertaining page-turner.