Mob mysteries are easy come and go

The Villa of Mysteries

By David Hewson.

Macmillan Books.
368pp. $30.

Reviewer: LT Simone Heyers.

The title sounds ominous and mysterious, and in the first few pages, the text goes along with the title like a Vespa in Rome.

The Villa of Mysteries is set in Rome, not the tourist-filled Colosseum or Trevi Fountain Rome, but normal, everyday Roman’s Rome.

If you’ve been there you’ll recognise the sights and be en-chanted by the extra information only a local will know.

If you haven’t been there, it’s like any other novel of its genre, but rich in its description.

It builds and plateaus, then builds more – intrigue, history, pagan rituals, beautiful missing teenagers and the mob.

It’s not easy to put The Villa of Mysteries down.