The Savage Garden

 (52 customer reviews)

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...Read more

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...Read more

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills is an engrossing, enthralling read. In what other book can you find a discussion of Renaissance sculpture, the genetic ancestry of oranguatans, Ovid, Dante, WWII, plus some spicy romance? Mills manages to throw all of that into this book and yet it remains a tightly written mystery. College student Adam Strickland is assigned a paper to look into the history of an unusual 16th century garden in Italy by his professor. Upon his arrival, he finds himself pulled into the intricate politics and machinations of the family as well as falling head over heels for the villa and its garden. The garden is filled with sculptures that seem to tell a story, it's up to Adam to put the pieces together and perhaps lift a family curse, because the eldest son was murdered by the Germans at the end of the war, and his death hangs heavily over the villa (including the entire third floor which has been locked since) and the small town as well. Adam is a friendly...Read more