Death at the Villa

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"All this blood and violence. God help us. It is like a bad dream. When shall we wake?"

It is the summer of 1943, and the height of the war in Italy. Alda Olivier's quiet life at the Villa Gualtieri is violently disrupted when a wounded English paratrooper lands in the area. Alda shelters the handsome Englishman, Richard Drew, in an abandoned tomb, attempting to evade enemies and fascist forces who surround them. Soon, however, the poisonous machinations of those enemies lead to murder, while the war inevitably closes in on them all. Can a stalwart young Englishman come daringly to the rescue of a fair damsel in a tumultuous foreign land where he himself needs rescuing?

A contemporary review compares Death at the Villa to "classical Italian opera"; its "narrative of jealousy, violence, tragedy and innocence against a somber background" makes for "convincing and gripping reading." More recently Jacques Barzun has praised the novel's "tense situation, beautifully plotted and narrated," and its "admirably diversified characters and . . . picture of the times."

Death at the Villa was first published in 1946. This new edition includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.