Return to Valetto

Smith (The Electric Hotel) unspools an intriguing saga of wartime promises and trauma. In 2011, widower Hugh Fisher leaves his home in Michigan for a sabbatical in Valetto, the Umbrian village of his deceased Anglo Italian mother, Hazel. There, he discovers a chef named Elisa Tomassi occupying his mother’s cottage, which he inherited. Elisa claims Hugh’s resistance fighter grandfather gave it to her family while on his deathbed during WWII. Hugh’s three widowed aunts, who never knew what happened to their father, call in lawyers to dispute Elisa’s story. Hugh’s 99-year-old grandmother, meanwhile, insists Hugh travel to the village where her husband was buried to get to the bottom of things. There, he meets Alessia, Elisa’s mother, who spent part of the war as a child refugee in the Serafino villa. Alessia shares the decades-long correspondence she had with Hazel and reveals she and Hazel were tortured by Valetto’s sole fascist party member, Silvio Ruffo. Hugh, shaken by what he’s uncovered, returns to the villa and schemes with his aunts to confront Silvio, who is still alive at 96. The characters are vividly drawn, and the plot’s low-grade tension grows taut as Hugh works himself up to the final showdown. This intelligent family drama will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (June)