Cambridge University Professor Crispin Leonard has waited a long time to find just the right student for a sensitive task. An old friend, Signora Docci, has asked him to be on the lookout for someone to unravel the symbolism of the grounds surrounding her family villa a short distance from the tiny Tuscan hill town of San Casciano. After careful consideration, Professor Leonard chooses senior Adam Strickland and sends him off on a discovery mission. The centuries-old garden has rested quietly until Adam arrives to study it for his thesis. He immerses himself in the tangle of vegetation, but finds that the manor house intrigues him almost as much as the garden. Adam has heard the stories and knows that something tragic occurred there during the Second World War, some 14 years previous to his arrival, resulting in the third floor of the villa being sealed and declared off limits. Almost instantly, Villa Docci’s matriarch, the elderly Francesca Docci, warms to Adam, eager to hear what insights he unearths. As Adam wanders the garden, more questions than answers arise. The statues seem oddly placed. Even their expressions are a bit off. Adam’s research leads him to the belief that this is not the work of a bad landscape architect. Rather, the garden is precisely as designed. But why? And the matter of the closed-off floor of the villa? The explanation Adam has heard involved the death of Signora Docci’s eldest son at the hands of occupying German soldiers. A tragedy, yes, but is it reasonable to close off that part of the house forever? Adam had planned only a few weeks to complete his work in Italy, but he finds himself enchanted by Antonella, Francesca’s granddaughter. Then Harry, Adam’s rogue brother, announces that he will drop in for a short stay. Although he loves his brother, Adam dreads a visit from Harry, for Harry usually means trouble — and always means diminishing Adam’s funds. But while Harry provides a somewhat pleasant diversion, he also points Adam toward a surprising revelation and lightens the mood around the villa, giving the Doccis an easy excuse to host lavish celebratory dinners. And Antonella provides an even more pleasant diversion. As for the garden, Adam thinks he understands what its designer’s message was. When he turns to the mystery of the house, all the signs point to a horror that he wishes he could forget. Of course, he can’t. He continues on the trail of clues, naively oblivious to the dangers he faces. If the death on the third floor was not at the hands of the Germans, as he’d been told, then the murderer may get edgy if Adam comes too close to the truth. When he realizes his room has been rifled and he has picked up a trail, he knows he is on to something. But will he live to find the truth? While Mark Mills has intertwined history with a marvelous puzzle, that’s not the best part about THE SAVAGE GARDEN. The best part is the joy of losing oneself to the beauty of the Tuscan countryside in the late 1950s and relishing a less frenetic era through the eyes of a clever young man. Better yet, the startling conclusion leads to a highly satisfying ending. One always wants justice to be served. Here, it is — well served. — Reviewed by Kate Ayers

This review is from: The Savage Garden (Hardcover)

About three years ago, British author Mark Mills debuted with “Amagansett”, a critically acclaimed murder mystery set in post-World War II Long Island, notable in the off-the-beaten track setting and period and in Mill’s slick and sophisticated prose. But where “Amagansett” meandered sometimes aimlessly across Hampton’s dunes, Mills’ second effort, “The Savage Garden”, is as lively and raucous a page-turner as the Tuscan hills where his story takes place. Adam Strickland is a young Cambridge student in the decade or so following World War II; a brilliant but borderline slacker. For his thesis, his professor suggests travel to Italy to research the Renaissance gardens of the Villa Docci. Drawn more to the promised pleasures of Tuscany’s seductive hills than the academic allure of a rather pedestrian Florentine garden, Adam gladly accepts the challenge. Traveling from Florence to the surrounding hillsides, Adam meets the aging and elegant matriarch Signora Docci and begins his scholarly research on the villa’s garden, supposedly a memorial to “Flora” – the wife of it’s 15th century owner. But it is soon apparent that there is more to the garden – and to the families who’ve occupied the villa for centuries – than Renaissance architecture and medieval history. Intrigue and mystery seem to lurk behind every statue and behind the villa’s locked doors, revealing sinister parallel events spanning the hundreds of years between Flora’s untimely death and the murder of Signora Docci’s son by the Nazi’s who occupied the villa during the WWII. Simply put, “The Savage Garden” has all the elements making a great novel. The premise is clever, intelligent, and understated, delivered by a cast of well-drawn and likable characters who are cast in credible situations while reacting believably. The story line throws in enough history and culture to keep it interesting, while not bogging down in unnecessary historical minutia. But most of all, “The Savage Garden” is at its core a good old fashioned Gothic mystery that will bring back memories of “The DaVinci Code” and Matthew Pearl’s “The Dante Club”, while deftly sidestepping the “Hollywood” of the former and tedium of the latter. Make no mistake about it – Mark Mills is a writer with serious chops – a writer that in two outings has shown depth and versatility and an uncanny ability to educate while entertaining. I’m looking forward to number three, but hoping the wait is less than three years.