THE CHEESE THAT INSPIRED A MYSTERY

 By Korina Moss

Case of the Bleus is the upcoming fourth book in my Cheese Shop Mystery series and I’m really excited about this one. I had a lot of fun writing it, because I decided to do something a little different this time. There’s the anticipated murder, but the victim might take you by surprise. There are riddles that the reader can solve, right along with Willa and her sleuthing sidekicks. And there’s cheese, which isn’t the different part, of course. What’s different about the cheese featured in this book is that the entire mystery revolves around it.

My inspiration for Case of the Bleus came last fall when I visited Spread Cheese Co. in Middletown, CT. We’d recently done a Murder Mystery & Cheese Pairing event at the Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore where the cheese shop provided each attendee with a sampling plate of several of the cheeses (plus accompaniments) mentioned in my first book, Cheddar Off Dead. The cheesemonger and the owner spoke more in-depth about the cheeses while we tried them, and then I spoke about my Cheese Shop Mystery series and signed my books. Spread Cheese Co. is run by two young women (much like Willa minus the discovery of dead bodies) and has become my go-to cheese shop. Cheesemonger Nina, who’s now with Fairfield Greenwich Cheese, helped me with much of the cheese research in this latest book. 

Rogue River Blue

On one of my visits to Spread Cheese Co. last fall, they generously offered me a sample of the best blue cheese I’ve had to date—the World Champion Rogue River Blue. Made by Rogue River Creamery in Oregon, Rogue River Blue is the only American-made cheese to win the highest distinction of World Champion at the World Cheese Awards. It’s a seasonal cheese and released on the autumnal equinox. It’s only available for a few months each year and sells out quickly. It’s in such high demand that shops rush to preorder it ahead of time. This distinctive cheese is aged in caves for 9-11 months, then wrapped in syrah grape leaves that have been soaked in pear spirits, giving it a bit of a fruity flavor. In my opinion, it takes the bitter edge off the pungency of your average blue cheese, although it still packs a delicious punch. This cheese was so delectable with its fudgy texture, I ate most of the quarter pound I’d purchased without any accompaniment.

Cabrales

The idea that a cheese could be so unique and coveted was the initial spark of an idea for Case of the Bleus. My research took me further into the world of valuable cheeses. In my book, I mention the world’s most expensive cheese, the award-winning Cabrales. At $6,682 per pound, a wheel of Cabrales blue cheese from northern Spain earned the title of the world’s most expensive cheese after a 2.2 kg wheel (about 4.85 lbs) was sold at auction for €30,000 (about $32,000 with today’s exchange rate).⁠ There’s also a black market for cheese—in one year, almost seven hundred blocks of Saint Nectaire were stolen in France. In Italy, Parmigiano-Reggiano makers have started putting edible microchips about the size of a grain of sand on their 90-lb cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters selling rip-offs of their premium product. 

All this got my (non-cheese) wheels turning, and I just had to come up with my own extremely valuable and highly sought-after blue cheese and plot my mystery around it. I named my fictional cheese Church Bleu.

In Case of the Bleus, the secrets to an enigmatic and award-winning blue cheese may be gone forever when its creator -- Willa's former boss, Max Dumas -- dies. But when the person everyone thought was inheriting the cheese is killed for those secrets, the hunt for Max's Church Bleu begins. When Willa discovers she's the intended heir, she must decipher the riddles Max left in order to find the cheese and the killer before the killer finds her.

Case of the Bleus releases on September 26th and is available for preorder in paperback and e-reader. Wesleyan RJ Julia is hosting another Murder Mystery & Cheese Pairing with me and Spread Cheese Co. for Case of the Bleus on October 4th. Tickets and more information are available here.  

Cheese names can be a lot of fun, especially for regional and artisanal cheeses. Do you have a favorite cheese name?