Kisses Sweeter Than Wine — Richard Hernaman Allen

1977/8. Informed by an Italian diplomat that English Wine producers are using foreign grapes, Nick Storey investigates, but within weeks, one of the English Wine producer's equipment is blown up and his vines ploughed over. The possibility that this is retaliation for a refusal to cooperate with a local mafia in Calabria leads to information about imports through Avonmouth. When an examination of a similar type of import leads to the discovery of $1m in cash, it becomes apparent that the claim about English Wine is purely a pretext for something much bigger, which leads to Rosemary being abducted and a shootout with MOSSAD agents on Avonmouth dock in the middle of the night. "Kisses sweeter than wine" is the twelfth book in a series of detective stores set in HM Customs & Excise, by Richard Hernaman Allen, a former Commissioner.