SUMMER'S LEASE

by John Mortimer ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 14, 1988

Part droll domestic-comedy, part ironic psychological-suspense: the misadventures of a British housewife whose dream of an exotic family idyll--summer vacation is an Italian villa--turns somewhat sour. Molly Pargeter, despite non-enthusiasm from lawyer-husband Hugh and oldest daughter Henrietta (a would-be punk-rocker), is ecstatic about taking a summer's lease on ""La Felicita,"" a rustic villa-with-pool in Tuscany. And she's only slightly disheartened when her father Haverford--a seedy and lecherous old journalist ""of unstoppable awfulness""--insists on tagging along. But quite soon after arrival Molly's enchantment begins to pall. The villa's water-supply mysteriously and suddenly dries up. A local acquaintance, the elderly ""Signor Fixit"" of the expatriate British community, is found dead in a neighboring villa's pool (also, like Molly's, suddenly dried-up). Meanwhile, thanks to mischief-making Haverford, Molly learns that dull hubby Hugh has been carrying on a maddeningly half-baked flirtation back home. And, above all, Molly's preoccupation with the villa's absent, mysterious owner--an Englishman named Kettering--shifts from childish fantasizing to amateur sleuthing to dark obsession. Is Mr. Kettering plotting to kill his wife. . .or vice-versa? Which of them is mixed up in a local scam involving that erratic water-supply? And how are they connected to the death of Signor Fixit? The answers to these questions--arrived at after Molly combines an art-tour with her search for the elusive Mr. Kettering--are only marginally arresting or persuasive. Molly's disillusionments, culminating in a final grim twist, will be very familiar material for readers of Englishfolk-abroad fiction. But Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey, etc.) does spendidly with the novel's more comic aspects--especially the shameless cavortings of the rather Rumpole-like Haverford, who (among other things) tries to blackmail a rich baronessa into marrying him. Iffy as a semi-serious morality play, then, but reliably diverting most of the way through.

Pub Date: July 14, 1988

ISBN: 0140158278

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION