Italian Fever

First edition (publ. Knopf)

Italian Fever is 1999 novel by Valerie Martin.

Plot summary

Part romance and part mystery, it tells the story of New Yorker Lucy Stark, who travels to Tuscany to wind up the affairs of her late boss – a writer named DV, who has died after falling down a well while staying at a remote villa. Lucy's job begins as a grim task, but a series of events and revelations during her stay in Italy start to provide her with an insight into DV, and ultimately help her to gain a greater understanding of herself.

Clever, pragmatic, capable Lucy Stark is the assistant to a bestselling but remarkably untalented writer named DV, who has spent the last several months in Tuscany searching for inspiration. One morning in Brooklyn, Lucy receives a startling phone call: DV is dead, and the circumstances are suspicious. Soon Lucy finds herself in Italy, surrounded by mysteries. Was DV murdered, or just the victim of his own stupidity? Was the ghost story he was writing pure fantasy, or did it hint at a darker reality? Is the devastating, married Massimo as dangerously in love with her as she is with him?