Bitter Remedy

There's no cure for murder...Commissario Alec Blume, on health leave and fleeing his partner Caterina, has retreated from Rome to central Italy. At the Villa Romanelli he enrolls on a natural remedies course conducted by a young woman named Silvana. But far from recuperating or resolving his differences with Caterina, a feverish Blume becomes isolated and sluggish with sickness. Increasingly ill-at-ease in the stifling environment, the dark history of the crumbling villa and its once-magnificent gardens draws him in. And when a Romanian girl who works for Silvana's ambiguous fiance Niki asks for his help, Blume finds himself dragged into the shadowy case of a missing girl, and the secret horrors of the garden's malign beauty.

Conor Fitzgerald has lived in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and currently lives in Italy. He has produced a current affairs journal for foreign embassies based in Rome, and founded a successful translation company. This is the fifth in his Commissario Alec Blume series.