After twenty years abroad, Guido has come back to work as a gardener in the mountains where he was born. Guido is like the valley’s villas gardens: old-fashioned and full of secrets.
And when he finds the body of an unknown woman in an abandoned garden, Guido finds it very hard to keep his secrets safe and pretend he has no past.

In a neglected garden that is part of a large villa occupied only for two weeks in the summer, Guido immediately notices two things that should not be there: a bright yellow, unmistakable Ginkgo Biloba leaf – with no Gingko trees in sight –, and a blonde young woman lying dead on the ground, wearing a long, elegant dress of the same blue as her eyes, open wide and staring blankly. There is also that hint of an old, familiar scent which only he, thanks to his sharp sense of smell, has noticed on the crime scene. Even though he is trying to keep a low profile, that unknown young woman and her sad fate become an obsession for Guido, and he cannot resist the temptation to start a personal investigation. With only the Ginkgo Biloba leaf as a clue, something that for some reason he decides not to mention it to the police, he begins a search through the valley where he was born, where everybody knows each other but people prefer to keep quiet, a valley forgotten by the rest of the world where seemingly nothing ever happens. But where, however, things are stirring up and long hidden secrets are about to be unburied.

pp.324

Guido is a gardener who has come back to live in the area where he was born, a dark, narrow valley.

Guido is like his valley: melancholy in a bad way and full of secrets, just like the gardens surrounded by high walls covered in ivy.

But despite his tendency towards solitude, the gardener gets caught up in another murder investigation and can’t resist searching for the truth.

Battling against stubborn climbing roses and planning elegant English-style borders; glasses of Barbera wine enjoyed in religious silence with his friend Osvaldo and just a few words exchanged with the valley’s other residents. That’s Guido’s life as a gardener and he likes it this way. Better than his past (an apartment in Paris and a job as a “nose” for a prestigious perfumery) – may it stay where it is and not come over the mountains of the Cervo Valley in Piedmont. This equilibrium, however, is disrupted by the visit of the police inspector, who requires some botanical advice. A woman has been murdered in the city: there are no clues except for a bag of seeds found in her pocket. Guido recognises some of these seeds easily, but others are a true mystery. What’s especially strange is that they all look like they belong to infesting plants, weeds, to be precise. This sparks Guido’s curiosity and he wants to know more about it, to step into this woman’s orderly, predictable life, possibly because, actually, she’s no stranger to him…

pp.400