Passion and Death in Tuscany

About the Book

The story takes place in Florence and Greve, in Tuscany, between January, 1986 and January, 1987. In the first short chapter, the four main characters are introduced: First, and probably the most important person is the self-conscious Allan A. Praitt, a youthful-appearing handsome 68 year-old retired English professor and writer who plans to develop a family-owned winery in California. While Al is dining in the crowded and noisy Ristorante Moro in Greve, two beautiful 21-year old women engage Al in a teasing, flirtatious exchange. They are the Italo-American heiress, Lucia Conde, a striking brunette and gifted concert pianist and Dawn Knight, an art major at Stanford's campus in Florence, who shares Lucia's large apartment. As the Ristorante Moro prepares to close, Lucia and Al feel threatened by the sudden appearnce of the handsome but brooding 46-year old art dealer and womanizer, Michele Angelo Leone. These four principals and other conflicting people immediately generate romance, lust, sex, suspense and violence which is mitigated by pleasure, passion, love, hope, fear and success. The story ends in a murderous conflict which leaves the principal characters either dead, crippled or demoralized with no hope of ever finding peace or happiness again. In a short up-beat epilogue all of the surviving and secondary characters find each other in a wondrous reunion at the Napa Valley Conde estate where Lucia enjoyed most of her first eleven years. This tale of love and tragedy reaches a joyful conclusion as Al's dream of his winery, Les Caves de Bacchus, is realized and Lucia finds a new meaning in life as she plays Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata for all of her family and friends.

About the Author

After a confusing childhood and a parentless adolescence, I finished high school, worked four years, and then attended university. On December 8, 1941 I enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Followiing almost five years of flying and bombing Hitler's Germany, I returned to Berkeley, California. After three years I earned degrees in Journalism, Political Science and Educational Psychology. Simultaneously I met my future wife who resigned her State Department career to join me in a life of teaching and travel including two-year Fulbright grants to Greece and later to Italy. By the 1960's our sons were on their own allowing us to explore the U.S. and Western Europe and following my retirement we covered much of the globe. Paradoxically I did little writing until 1986 when my wife and I were living in Panzano, Italy. There I began the story which finally became Passion and Death in Tuscany.