Product Description

A beautiful Tuscan villa, a mysterious garden, two hidden murders - one from the 16th century, one from the twentieth - and a family driven by dark secrets, combine in this evocative, intriguing mystery set in post-War Italy. In 1958, Adam Strickland, a young Cambridge scholar, travels to the Villa Docci in Tuscany to study a sixteenth-century garden. Designed and laid out by a grieving husband to the memory of his dead wife, it is a mysterious world of statues, grottoes, meandering rills and classical inscriptions. But tragedy has hit the Docci family more recently. The German occupation during World War 2 had a devastating impact on them, and the tensions between collaborators and partisans were played out within their own tight circle. Adam is fascinated by the Doccis and increasingly aware that there are dangerous secrets hidden within the family domain. The garden itself starts to exercise a powerful influence over his imagination, its iconography seeming to point to some deeper, darker truth than was first apparent. And what really lay behind a killing at the villa towards the end of the war? Past and present, love and intrigue, intertwine in an evocative mystery which vividly captures the experience of an innocent abroad in the uncertain world of post-War Italy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #239439 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Review
Praise for 'The Whaleboat House': 'A master of the art of murderous storytelling.' Sunday Times 'This is an intriguing, atmospheric, literary crime novel. The uneasy juxtaposition of two communities is brilliantly evoked by Mark Mills.' Daily Mail 'Subtle and stylish!Mills is clever, unravelling the story from several angles.' Observer 'The requisite qualities of a film script -- atmospheric details, lucidity and a simple, spare style.' Sunday Telegraph 'A very rich book -- rich in detail and history and local color; rich in characters and conflict and mystery; and, most importantly, rich in wonderful writing.' John Grisham 'Complex and compelling!Mark Mills reveals himself to be a master storyteller.' Val McDermid 'A striking and assured first thriller!worldly and impeccably researched.' William Boyd

The Times
`Mills writes beautifully... an unusual, captivating novel that is
a cut above the norm'

Daily Mirror
`Unputdownable... hugely atmospheric'

Customer Reviews

Just above average - once you've read 1/3 of the book
Alex, an art history student in the 1950s, is broken up with and finds an offer to study the garden of the Docci villa in Tuscany a welcome chance to get away. He is drawn into a wilderness of a family secret and the secret of the centuries' old garden and its artwork. "The Savage Garden" is about pulling back and leafed branch and stepping into the unknown and daring to see.

I found this novel difficult to get start. The beginning is a series of horticultural description and scenes that seems out of place. However, about a third into the novel, it gripped me. By then, finally, Alex was three-dimensional and so were the other characters, the matriarch Docci and her sensual granddaughter. The horticultural elements became part of what set "The Savage Garden" apart from other novels. When I finished, I had even reached the conclusion that this is a great book.

The plotline in "The Savage Garden" is divided between Alex's experiences, the search for the murderer of the uncle during WWII, and the interpretation of the garden with its ties to Dante's circles of hell and mythology. I found the garden-plotline most interesting. The poking around for the murderer of the uncle seems rather trivial.

All in all, given the chance, this book is just above average.
Louise

Very very average - and strangely similar to Kate Mosse's Labarinth
Hmmm, isn't it odd how some Richard and Judy books are spot on and others are so far off the mark. I read this at speed on holiday. If I hadn't I wouldn't have finished it. It gave me a strange sense of deja vu as I was in the same place when I read Kate Mosse's Labarinth (which I wasn't very keen on) and the stories were so similar. I wouldn't bother reading this, it sounds promising and then is so dull and lacking in depth that you'll have wasted your time.

Good build up throughout book but finished too quickly
I really enjoyed the gradual unfolding of the story and the way that the characters were developed. The book felt like an old fashioned murder mystery where clues were being dropped along the way in an Agatha Christie style.
None of the characters were too cliched and I felt that just the right amount of information was given about them.
The only problem I had with the book was the ending, it all happened far too quickly and I felt that I must have missed something earlier on. I did, however, like the way that the letter summarised the conclusion.