A Good Day for Chardonnay

Welcome to Del Sol, New Mexico, the town that Sheriff Sunshine (Sunny) Vicram’s deputy refers to as being “four cents short of a nickel”. Sunny has recently moved back to Del Sol with her daughter to be close to her parents. Sunny and her equally quirky, but very competent team of deputies, are dealing with a bar fight resulting in serious injuries, her teenaged daughter is hunting a serial killer, oh, and a renegade racoon loose in the police station. She’s also still trying to solve the mystery of her own abduction years before, as a teenager. Despite all evidence pointing to “bad boy” Levi Ravinder, somehow Sunny knows he’s not to blame.

This is a police procedural with a good, solid mystery to solve, but told with enough off-beat quirkiness and humour that it has the feel of a Stephanie Plum mystery. If you like a book that’s intricately plotted, with a strong female lead character, give this one a try.

A Good Day for Chardonnay is #2 in the Sunshine Vicram series by Darynda Jones, author of the popular Charley Davidson paranormal series. You can read it as a stand-alone, but I recommend also reading Bad Day for Sunshine both to fill in the backstory and just because it’s such a good book!