Verdigris

At the tail end of the 1960s, the thirteen-year-old Michelino spendshis summers at his grandparents' modest estate in Nasca, near Lake Maggiore,losing himself in the tales of horror, adventure, and mystery shelved in hisgrandfather's library. The greatest mystery he's ever encountered, however,doesn't come from a book--it's the groundskeeper, Felice, a sometimesfrightening, sometimes gentle, always colorful man of uncertain age who speaksan enchanting dialect and whose memory gets worse with each passing day. When Michelinovolunteers to help the old man by providing him with clever mnemonic devices tokeep his memory alive, the boy soon finds himself obsessed with piecingtogether the eerie hodgepodge of Felice's biography . . . a quest that leads tothe uncovering of skeletons in Nazi uniforms in the attic, to Felice'sadmission that he can hear the voices of the dead, and to a new perspective onFelice's endless war against the insatiable local slugs, who are by no meansmerely a horticultural threat.  

And yet nothing could be more fascinating to Michelinothan Felice's own secret origins. Where did he come from? Is he the victim orthe villain of his story? Is he a noble hero, a holy fool, or perhaps the verything that Michelino most wants and fears: a real-life monster.