Stephanie Jones: Book Review - Blood, Wine & Chocolate by Julie Thomas

A witness-protection story that takes in London’s underworld and Waiheke Island’s idyllic vineyards, the first crime novel by Kiwi writer Julie Thomas, Blood, Wine & Chocolate, centres on one Vincent Albert Whitney-Ross, the son of childhood sweethearts who forge stoically on after losing most of their family members in the Blitz. Vinnie’s father Bert, an accountant, happens upon a role serving Tobias Lane, a heavy-duty organized crim whose last accountant disappeared suddenly and who needs Bert’s expertise to maintain a front as a law-abiding businessman.

Tobias’ grandson Marcus is a schoolfriend of Vinnie’s, as is Tom McGregor, the son of a brutal enforcer-for-hire from Glasgow. Chance events and a rigid education system eject the trio into the same petty-crime milieu as teenagers. Vinnie becomes a two-bit hustler with a market stall of stolen goods, while Marcus is embroiled in the family business, for which he shows aptitude, patiently and methodically taking revenge on the members of a police anti-drug squad who were involved in a raid that killed his sister. Tom, like his father, proves a diligent and strong-stomached wingman.

Though the novel is consistently colourful, it takes a while to get going because of Thomas’ lengthy exposition: about a third of the text has been and gone before the action proper begins, as Vinnie and Marcus, who went their separate ways after the violent and bloody death of Bert, are reunited some 20 years later. The Whitney-Ross family has never fared well in the orbit of the Lanes, and Vinnie’s unwitting role as an observer to an episode of Lane criminality drives him and wife Anna into a new life, under new names, as vineyard owners on Auckland’s Waiheke Island.

The bucolic and peaceful setting is ideal for the pair’s careers, Vinnie having established himself in the UK as a supplier of high-end wine to wealthy clients, and Anna a self-made pastry chef now specializing in artisan chocolate-making. The narrative strengthens with the southern shift, gathering steam towards the promise of reckoning and redemption.

Vinnie is a sympathetic, if slightly under-drawn, character who, like Anna, has a complicated family history that engenders a need for stability in the present. Thomas uses childhood tragedy rather than psychological excavation to illuminate her characters’ personalities, but this fits well enough in a novel about accidents of birth and timing.  

What is readily apparent is that Vinnie is a survivor, with skills borne out in several entertaining (and literally wine-soaked) death scenes. It is a form of endurance by debauchery, Blood, Wine & Chocolate being heavily laced with all three. Pulpy and lurid in its best moments, and increasingly fun as it builds momentum, this madcap tale works best for the reader who suspends disbelief and goes along for the ride. The reward is a diverting escapade in which all’s well that ends well.