An immensely satisfying story (The Guardian) of family war art and betrayal set around an
ancient ancestral home in the Tuscan countryside from the bestselling award-winning author of
Property. When Jan Vidor an American writer and academic rents an apartment in a Tuscan villa
for the summer she plans to spend her break working on a novel about Mussolini. Instead she
finds herself captivated by her aristocratic landlady the elegant acerbic Beatrice Salviati
Bartolo Doyle whose family has owned Villa Chiara for generations. Jan is intrigued by
Beatrice s stories of World War II particularly by the tragic fate of her uncle Sandro who
was mysteriously murdered in the driveway of the villa at the conclusion of the war. Day by day
Beatrice makes Jan privy to her family history. As years go by and the friendship is sustained
by infrequent meetings Jan finds she can t resist writing Beatrice s story. But as she works
on the novel it becomes clear that the villa itself is at risk and that Beatrice is incapable
of saving it. Jan understands that she is telling the story of a catastrophe her friend might
prefer to conceal. She presses on.
