Bottled Up - Steve Exeter

Francine Witt is back: armed with a travelogue, a wry charm, and a habit of finding murder where the ros? flows freely. What begins as a biography project about a disgraced Egyptologist quickly spirals into something far stranger: a sealed bottle marked with an ancient glyph, whispers of Empress Jos?phine Bonaparte's secret rituals, and a trail of memory-infused wine-possibly connected to the eccentric Masonic collector Daniel Iffla-that stretches from Amarna to Bordeaux. When her new assistant Rosalind Downing becomes mysteriously connected to the ritual itself, Francine finds herself racing to decode a legacy someone is killing to protect. As glyphs emerge, bottles are opened, and a long-buried Brotherhood awakens, Francine must face a terrifying question: what if remembering the past isn't enough, and the only way to survive is to contain it? BOTTLED UP uncorks another sparkling blend of feminist sleuthing, historical conspiracy, and Da Vinci Code-style suspense, with Francine once again proving that secrets age best when bottled, and sometimes explode when opened!