The Tainted Vintage (Dvorska & Dambersky, #1)

by Clare Blanchard

[zooloo1983]

I really liked the contrasting characters in this book of Ivan Dambersky and Jana Dvorska and I loved the setting of Czech. I have never been there but the wealth of information and description by the author made me feel like I was there.

We jump straight into the book with the death, suspicious or otherwise, of Mayor Slansky. I loved the fact that there is no preamble and we are thrown straight into it, again the descriptions used I felt like I was in the dank wine cellar with them!

They are two cops who really shouldn’t get on, one a feminist and one a misogynist, but they work and they work well. Both with their own flaws, but this is what makes you want to champion for them as the book progresses, maybe not so much at the beginning. They both want to solve this murder, which (as it says in the blurb) is being ignored by all, but are they tempting fate and potentially their careers and lives to solve this.

But why are they told to leave it alone?

We are introduced to a number of characters whilst getting to the bottom of it all, these characters are so colourful it reinforces how drab, dark and menacing Mayor Slansky really was!

We are thrown back into the past of WWII, Communism, we hit the social climbers, we hit the lows, the background to the nation and the culture of this community and region, all integral to the plot of this book. Some of this I was not aware of, and it was fascinating to read, although a mystery we had facts to feed our interest along the way.

This is not a light read, concentration is needed but you are rewarded with such an in-depth and twisted book. It is not a fast-paced crime fighting book, it is a slow burner, creating imageries and character building as you are taken through step by step with a few chuckles along the way. The book is written in a gritty but pleasing way, and in a way where you could be reading about something that actually happened on the news, it was police procedural at the rawest form, solving a murder and trying to stay alive.

This is the first book in the series (but listed as second on Goodreads) and I already love the dynamic of these two characters. I will be keeping my eye out for more them for sure!