A haunting and luminous novel that explores the dark secrets lurking beneath the stunning natural beauty of a dying timber town. A mysterious beachcomber appears one day on the coastal bluffs near the small town of Carverville, whose best days are long behind it. Who is he, and why has he returned after nearly forty years?Carverville's prodigal son, James, serendipitously finds work at the Eden Seaside Resort & Cottages, a gentrified motel, but soon finds his homecoming taking a sinister turn when he and a local teenager make a gruesome discovery, which force him to reckon with the ghosts of his past—and the dangers of the present. Rumors, distrust, and conspiracies spread among the townsfolk, all of them seemingly trapped in their claustrophobic and isolated world. But is there something even more sinister at work here than the mere fear of outsiders?In The Gardener of Eden, David Downie weaves an intricate and compelling...

Roman Roulette: Murder in the Catacombs, the Second Daria Vinci Investigation.For Commissioner Daria Vinci, it was supposed to be a night off, attending a benefit concert for the Institute of America in Rome. But little did the wealthy, distinguished guests know that beneath their feet, in the ancient catacombs, a very different kind of gathering was being held. One that would end in murder. In Roman Roulette, the second Daria Vinci investigation, the glamorous and high-principled police commissioner of DIGOS, Italy' s FBI, must investigate what at first seems a simple case of suicide. In doing so, she attracts the attention of her boss, the Questor of the Province of Rome, who has his own reasons for wanting her off the case. Now, Daria Vinci must solve the murder in 36 hours, while risking her career and, possibly, her life.

Its jaws open wide, a firefighting seaplane skims the glittering Gulf of Portofino on Italy's jagged Ligurian coast, scooping up a lone swimmer named Joe Gary. The super-rich, retired Italian-American has mob connections and a dirty political past. Has he been snatched by accident or murdered? Red Riviera, Commissioner Daria Vinci's first investigation, is a wild ride from the tangled trails of the Cinque Terre to glamorous Portofino to roistering Genoa. It's a Riviera made red by riotous bougainvillea and spilled blood. Half-American, Daria Vinci is an outsider, the unlikely rising star of Genoa's secretive Special Operations Directorate DIGOS. In Red Riviera, she must face down a Fascist police chief, the CIA's local mastermind, a former World War Two Spitfire fighter pilot, and a plucky hundred-year-old marquise whose memory is as long as it is vengeful, in order to solve her case.