Customer Reviews

The Savage Garden

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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

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 character who fills his narrative with bits of minituae that may not move the story but are fascinating in their telling. His explanation for why he can see connections and meanings where others missed them is that he is so ordinary that perhaps he notices when things aren't as ordinary as they should be. Charming! My one complaint is that I figured out who Flora's lover was long before Adam. Mills describes the cities of Florence and Sienna with such love and detail, I wish I could book a trip right now. The denouement is a nice switch from what I thought was coming, and the last line was jaw-dropping. Does this mean that there are more Adam Strickland stories coming our way? I sincerely hope so!

Mark Mills created a well conceived novel with a plot that interlaces intrigue, history, literature and mythology in his cerebral offering "The Savage Garden". Set in 1958, primarily in the Tuscan hills outside of Florence, the novel evokes the reality of the beautiful rolling countryside.

Protagonist Adam Strickland is a rather aimless Cambridge University art history student. It was suggested by his celebrated mentoring professor Crispin Leonard that he utilize the garden adjoining the Villa Docci as the basis for his thesis. The Villa was owned by an old acquaintance of the professor Signora Francesca Docci.

Bolting at the opportunity to visit Italy, Stickland was impressed by the High Renaissance architecture of the three storied villa as well as it's aristocratic septagenarian matriarch Signora Docci. Strickland's first encounter with the garden laid out by original owner Federico Docci in 1577 in memory of his young wife Flora who had died almost 30 years earlier was enchanting. The Romanesque garden was located within a spring fed patch of woodland decorated with statues, inscriptions and neo classical architecture.

The Docci family accepted Adam graciously giving him free reign of the estate with the exception of the third floor which had been sealed off. Apparently the Signora's eldest son Emilio had been shot and killed up there by occupying German soldiers. Her husband Benedetto ordered that part of the villa sealed off from that point on.

Gradually Adam after circumnavigating the garden many times and inspired by reading Dante's "The Divine Comedy", began to sense that the layout of the garden offered clues to the fate of Flora Docci who died in mysterious fashion. Spurred on by the Signora's fetching granddaughter Antonella, who he was falling in love with, and his rouguish sculptor brother Harry who arrived at the Villa Docci unexpectedly, Adam unravelled the mystery of Flora's untimely death.

Intrigued by the circumstances of the death of Emilio, Strickland began investigating the events surrounding that murder, being given clues by family members and denizens of nearby town San Casciano. He began to wonder if he was proceeding on his own volition or was he merely a pawn in a scheme to uncover the truth about the Villa Docci's two suspicious deaths.

Mills advances his storyline in seamless, rational fashion never letting us know too much all at once. His interesting mix of history and the arts keeps the plot flowing ending with a fairly unexpected concluding finale and denouement.

This fairly well written novel has all the elements of a good mystery, but ultimately it disappoints. It reads fast, but is certainly not a page turner. The mystery of the garden is not compelling--nothing depends on solving it--and Adam's solution amazes the reader far less than it does the other characters. Suspense is lacking and characters only sketched in. The author attempts to make the garden at the Villa Docci a character itself, but that fails too. Adam, who supposedly "sees" things that other people do not--his major talent which makes one suspicious that he is being groomed for a series of tales, fails to see what is going on in his own family. The author wraps everything up a little too neatly at the end and the reader is left unsatisfied. Good material, whose potential is not fully realized.

"The Savage Garden," by Mark Mills, is the story of a geographical, spiritual, and psychological journey taken by twenty-two year old art history scholar, Adam Strickland, in 1958. Adam is at loose ends; he is drifting academically and cannot settle on a suitable subject for his thesis. His professor, Crispin Leonard, suggests that Adam take a break from Cambridge and stay in Tuscany for the summer. His assignment will be to write about an extraordinary garden created by a sixteenth century nobleman in memory of his wife, who died at the tender age of twenty-five. The garden is located in Villa Docci, the ancestral estate of Signora Docci, an elderly and enigmatic widow who invites Adam to stay in the villa while he conducts his research.

The "beautiful but also disquieting" garden casts a spell on Adam and he becomes obsessed with it. He comes to suspect that the garden's architect, Federico Docci, laid it out with an ulterior motive, and that the clues to Docci's intentions lay in a careful reading of Dante's "The Divine Comedy." Was Docci's garden truly "the touching tribute of a grieving husband to his deceased wife," or might there be a more sinister interpretation? To learn the truth, Adam delves into Greek mythology, medieval literature, and his knowledge of other Renaissance gardens. Ultimately, he sees the garden from an entirely new perspective and draws some provocative conclusions.

In Italy, Adam meets the luscious Signora Letizia Fanelli, who runs a pensione where Adam stays for a little while. He also comes across an idealistic and charming former partisan named Fausto, who loves to talk about all things military. Fausto warns Adam to be careful at Villa Docci, where mysterious deaths have been known to occur. Adam inevitably falls in love with Signora Docci's lovely granddaughter, Antonella Voli, a fashion designer whose valuable insight helps Adam penetrate the garden's hidden meaning. Before the summer ends, not only does Adam solve the puzzle of the memorial garden, but he also uncovers an even darker secret that will change the lives of the entire Docci family.

Mark Mills has written an evocative novel about personal discovery, the complexity of family relationships, and the delicate interaction between art and nature. There are many pleasures to be found here: a tidy literary and artistic mystery, beautiful descriptive writing, and a touch of psychological suspense. Although the book's conclusion is a bit anticlimactic, there are enough pleasures along the way to make this trip to Tuscany worth taking.

I was anxious to read this one, but was disappointed. It was patronizing, manipulative (sort of like a bad movie) and ultimately boring. The main character lacked depth as did most of the other characters. It just didn't have enough depth or excitement, so not even a great beach read.

I had a really hard time deciding how to rate this item because I really feel it deserves three and a half stars. Since this isn't possible, I went with three because I don't feel it's quite deserving of four stars. I enjoyed the book but it was lacking that indefinable something that makes a novel truly breathtaking for me.

The premise of the novel is very intriguing: our young hero unravels a mystery that's over 400 hundred years old and, in the process, begins to sniff out another that occurred in the much more recent past. Adam is a likable character with a nicely self-effacing sense of humor. He is easy to relate to because he isn't perfect. I'm not quite sure that the other characters are as fully fleshed out, though. They were good characters but some of them, such as Adam's brother Harry, just didn't quite hit the mark with me.

I felt the book was at its best when Adam was working to uncover the mysteries of Villa Docci. Even so, I found the mysteries surrounding the villa to be a little anti-climactic as I never quite experienced that on-the-edge of my seat urgency that a truly crackling good mystery will inspire in me. I never really felt that Adam was in any great peril and the unfolding of the elements of the mystery weren't quite as suspenseful as I felt they could be. I also did not like the personal details of Adam's life that came into play late in the book because they just felt a bit too tacked on for me. I didn't think they had any real importance to the overall plot and I really wondered why they were even in the book to begin with.

As for the mysteries, I found the historical mystery to be far more compelling than the contemporary one. I wish, though, that the author would have included a little more detail about the historical mystery. I think it would have served the plot well for Adam to have found some sort of historical records that would have offered a little more insight into the major players. They never felt fully real to me and so that took away from the mystery a bit because it seemed more like an interesting puzzle and less like a genuine human drama.

The contemporary mystery felt rather flat to me. While Adam took it very seriously, it seemed like the other characters were a little too casual about it--especially the character who is eventually unmasked. This particular character did not ring true to me as a person who committed a heinous act in a fit of desperation. I also found the ending disappointing because it was too far removed and I felt it would have been better had it played out in a more immediate and personal way.

Still, Mills is a fine writer and I can readily imagine him improving with time. This is not to say that this isn't a good book, merely that it's one that just didn't seem fully realized to me.

A disappointment; well-written, but the author's background as a screenwriter prevails, with gratuitous sex scenes and an unrealistic chase destroying any willing suspension of disbelief. Also, I guessed the identity of the person controlling the plot much sooner than the text revealed. A cliche ending just confirmed the sense of letdown. The eponymous garden may hold some secrets, but this novel is not as clever as it claims.

I usually agree with the other reviewers, but I found this book to be very boring and quite predictable. It was one of those books that you don't look forward to finishing. I also found the plot to be just too unbelievable - thus, I found myself not able to identify with the lead character, since I just found his actions to be too removed from reality. For a much, much better mystery, I would recommend the Meaning of Night.