The Road to Montepulciano

Two years after finishing his tour of duty in the Occupational Forces in Japan, Damson O’Reilly arrives in Siena, Italy. Sight-unseen at a local auction, he buys an abandoned Tuscan farmhouse in which he aims to write, paint, and start a new life.

The house, passed over at auction, becomes an impulse buy when it’s put up for a final time. He’s prepared for a semi-ruin, happy to turn his hand to renovating the house – however, what he’s totally unprepared for are three dead bodies, one of which he stumbles over when he arrives at La Mensola, the name of his isolated farmhouse on the road between Siena and Montepulciano.

Against the backdrop of a series of grisly murders, The Road to Montepulciano is the story of a young man, still suffering the scars of war, who, despite betrayal of trust and surrounded by a complex web of lies, finds friendship, love and the warmth of community.

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Author’s Note

“La Mensola” is a real house. It doesn’t exist in the exact spot that I’ve placed it in the story, an area I know very well, having spent many summers holidaying and working in the region around Montepulciano. It’s situated elsewhere in Tuscany and unless things have changed in recent years, it’s still abandoned and in need of renovation.

The author wishes to stress that this book is historical fiction. Events, names, places, dates, and the activities of real people may have occasionally been tweaked to advance the narrative.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my first close friends in Italy, Peter Locke and Pierluigi Meneghetti, both still deeply missed.

The reviews are coming in and two weeks after release they are all 5 stars. Couldn’t be happier. Here’s the most recent.