In the Tuscan hilltop village of Santorno, the setting for Amanda Craig's entertaining and bracing new novel, the Three Graces of her title are preparing for a spring wedding.

Adorning this idyll Craig's Graces - Ruth, Marta and Diana - are a trio of elderly expatriates with a total of "four breasts, five eyes and three hip replacements" between them.

When Enzo, a local villager, shoots an illegal immigrant from his bedroom window one night it triggers a series of events that embroil old and young, rich and poor, native and foreign.