From Booklist
Mills' second novel carves out new territory for the British author, whose superb debut, Amagansett (2004), told the story of a Basque fisherman on Long Island. This one, though still set in the post-World War II era, takes place in Tuscany, where Adam Banting, a Cambridge architecture student, is doing research on a famous Renaissance garden. But as he digs into the history and iconography of the garden, he comes to believe that the seemingly tranquil bower offers a road map to how its original owner murdered his wife. Similarly, as Adam learns more about the family who now owns the garden, he follows the trail of a more contemporary murder. This sort of jumping between historical and contemporary crimes has become commonplace, even cliched, in highbrow literary thrillers, but Mills uses the technique effectively, generating tension on both fronts and introducing some dizzying plot machinations. Adam is a bit too callow to hold our attention the way the robust Basque did in Amagansett, but there is plenty here to captivate those who like high culture mixed with high crime (fans of Iain Pears, for example). Bill Ott