I have just finished re-reading, for at least the second time, this novel by John Mortimer.
I think it gets into my top ten favourite books of all time.

It tells a tale of a family’s three week holiday in a rented villa in Tuscany.
That in itself would be enough to make me salivate, being an addict of that particular genre of travel fiction, but this book delivers much much more than that.
As anyone who has read any of the “Rumpole of the Bailey” series by Mr. Mortimer will know, this man is capable of writing with great fluency of wit, evident again in this novel, but this time he also provides a mystery story of great subtilty(and after three readings I am still knitting up loose ends).

The heroine is Molly Pargeter, middle aged, middle class, big boned, a disappointment to her father, her husband and her three daughters but, nonetheless, very endearing to the readers.
She is forced to bring her father on holiday with them.
The same Haverford Downs is one of Mortimer’s great comic creations.
He is a classic randy old man who ekes out a living by writing a column called “Jottings” in a Fleet Street “pinko” publication.
The book is littered with excerpts fron the same “Jottings”.
I defy any blogger not to cringe as they read these pretentious words. even though written in 1988, long before the advent of the blog, it is a fairly biting satire of the same.

As travelogue the book gives us a lovely introduction to Tuscany, a great description of the Palio in Sienna but principally (and this is seminal to the plot) a wonderful tour through the paintings of Piero della Francesca.
These are examined with great detail by Mortimer in the book and he sent me off, hot foot, to buy a book of his paintings as soon as I put “Summer’s Lease” down from the first reading.

“ Piero’s Flagellation, undoubtedly the greatest small picture in the world“:-Mortimer

He also set me off searching the highways and byways of Tuscany to see examples of Piero’s work while on holiday there about 10 years ago.
The “who dun it” mystery is lightly referred to all the way through the novel.
Molly becomes a sleuth, determined to discover the source of their water problems in the villa “La Felicita” and also to piece together information about their landlord, Buck Kettering.
Even though there are two murders in the course of the novel, these are only allowed to be background noises to the setting of Italy and the Mortimer’s great fun at the expense of Haverford and his pretensions.
You will laugh, bite your nails, and be inspired to persue both the countryside and its art.
How many other novels could possibly give you as much!
It’s out of print now but, fairly easily available second hand on the net.
Get one today!