a week before the fabulous flight of fancy wine charity auction in sonoma, california, someone kills a counterfeiter who has been concocting fakes of very expensive wine. wine expert sarah mckee is called in to help identify the victim--if she can. whoever killed him took his wallet, car, and computer--as well as his face. what they didn't take was a list in the dead man's pocket--a mystifying series of numbers, circles and checkmarks. sarah knows everyone in the wine industry, but she has no clue who the victim is. then a second man is killed, and the murder weapon is found nearby. prints on the gun point to sarah's friend, zach sullivan, whose father gambled away the family winery, paradise valley. with counterfeit paradise valley wine flooding the market and zach's bitterness over losing the family estate to a newcomer, all evidence points to him as the killer. determined to clear zach's name, sarah teams up with a sexy, by-the-book sheriff to investigate the murders. as they dig deeper into the case, they discover that the only clues connecting the two murders are the gun and identical lists of numbers and symbols found on both victims. but as they get closer to the truth, sarah realizes the counterfeit ring will stop at nothing to protect their secret operation. can sarah figure out what the lists mean, catch the real killer, and save her friend?