A luxurious wine tour. A handpicked group of strangers. A hint of cold-blooded murder.
When recently redundant travel journalist Callie Sharpe wins an all-expenses-paid spot on the Aurelian Trail-an ultra-exclusive, five-day wine tour through Australia's breathtaking Barossa Valley, she thinks it's the lifeline her empty bank account and dying career desperately need. She expects five days of pristine pours, stunning landscapes, and elite company. She expects to write a glowing feature that will put her back on the map.
She doesn't expect a corpse at the dinner table.
The flawless facade of the luxury tour shatters when a prominent retired surgeon drops dead during an opulent multi-course dinner. While the local authorities assume it's a tragic heart attack, Callie's investigative instincts kick in. Her suspicions turn to absolute terror when a second guest; a wealthy young tech entrepreneur is found dead in his room under equally unsettling, quiet circumstances.
As fear rolls over the vineyards, the remaining guests realize a horrifying truth: they are completely isolated, cut off from the outside world, and trapped in a beautiful valley with a killer who operates with absolute, architectural precision.
Beneath the sophisticated small talk and clinking crystal, everyone is hiding something. But as Callie digs into the histories of her fellow travellers, she uncovers a chilling pattern. These guests aren't random strangers at all. They have been meticulously handpicked and cast like actors in a deadly play. Every single one of them shares a hidden thread leading back to a tragic car crash on a country road fifteen years ago; a crime where the wealthy and well-connected walked away scot-free, while an innocent family was destroyed.
Now, a brilliant, vengeful mind has constructed a private reckoning inside the wine country. Someone on this tour has spent years aging a grudge, and they are finally ready to serve it.
Trapped in a tight circle of old secrets, growing paranoia, and lethal hospitality, Callie finds herself caught in the cross-hairs of a masterpiece of vigilante justice. With the final tasting rapidly approaching, she must untangle the roots of a decades-old grudge and unmask the killer hiding in plain sight before the last glass is poured.
Because in this valley, everything with deep roots has something buried beneath it... and some secrets are worth dying for.
Perfect for fans of atmospheric international thrillers, closed-circle mysteries, and gritty "Aussie Noir" like Jane Harper's The Dry or Lucy Foley's The Guest List, The Sommelier's Table is a gripping, slow-burn psychological thriller that explores the terrifying space where past sins demand a modern-day reckoning.
Cole, Harvy: -
Hey I'm Harvy Cole, and I've been telling stories most of my life.
Based in Australia, I came to murder mystery writing the way most people come to the things that stick. Slowly, then all at once. After years of reading everything the genre had to offer, I found myself increasingly frustrated with stories that buried their best ideas under unnecessary weight. That frustration eventually became a writing philosophy, and that philosophy became a body of work.
Australia has shaped me more than I probably realise. There's a particular quality to life here; the light, the pace, the way the city sits quietly beside some of the most striking landscape in the country. It's a place that looks straightforward on the surface and rewards patience if you look a little deeper. I suppose my writing works the same way.
What I care about, above all else, is respecting the reader's time and intelligence. A mystery should earn every page. The tension should be real, the stakes should matter, and the truth at the end should feel both surprising and inevitable. That's the standard I hold myself to, book after book.
When I'm away from the desk, I'm usually somewhere out in the Hills or along the coast. Walking has always been part of how I work through a story. At this point in my life, I've learned that the best ideas rarely come sitting still.
I'm glad you've found your way here. Pull up a chair as there's always a case to work through.
