Romance & Suspense for a Rainy Afternoon: Up at the Villa

Up at the Villa is a book to curl up with on a rainy or winter afternoon. You can be transported to the hills outside Florence for a little romance and suspense and still be home in time for dinner. The novel turns around the love life of a young English widow named Mary Panton. There’s pressure for her to pair up with someone new, and the most suitable suitor appears to be 54-year-old Sir Edgar Swift, Mary’s senior by 25 years. Moreover, he was a friend of her father’s; they knew one another in the Indian Civil Service, before her father’s untimely death when Mary was still a child. Over the years Edgar had looked in on Mary and her mother, apparently always hopeful that he might be Mary’s husband some day. (The book was written in 1940, but that’s no excuse. Shouldn’t he have been hitting on Mary’s mother?) But then there’s also the incorrigible Rowley Flint, a charmer who’s never had to work a day in his life, and who Mary swears she’d never have as a lover. And, finally, there’s Karl Richter, a mysterious, wretchedly poor Austrian, a student of art and a lousy violinist, whom Mary meets at a restaurant where she tips him too much. Suffice it to say that in this very short novel, the author has created a complex character whose risky behavior makes perfect sense, although it’s still pretty stupid. In the end there seem to be two conflicting morals: every human being’s got a heart and pride; proceed with caution. But if you’re rich and have a clever friend, you can get away with murder.