There are always three, four, five novels featuring the Sicilian police chief inspector Salvo Montalbano that have not yet been translated into English! Despite that backlog, whenever you finish a Montalbano novel, you know you have a year to wait. And there was plenty of suspense when, early in the story, Montalbano figures out that his friend and assistant Fazio has been kidnapped and possibly murdered.īut overall this novel was a disappointment, at least by comparison to every other of the novels in this series.Ĭhecking out the excellent mystery website, Stop You're Killing Me!, always proves frustrating when it comes to Andrea Camilleri. The story itself was fairly compelling - not every murder mystery features a cross-dressing gangster. It seemed rough in places (especially near the beginning), and never exhibited the brilliance of his earlier translations. The translation this time was really not up to Stephen Sartarelli's usual high standards. Later, Camilleri steps out of the omniscient observer role to make reference to himself, Camilleri, and his relationship to Montalbano.
#COMISARIO MONTALBANO DVD SERIES#
He makes reference to the TV series about inspector Montalbano (an excellent series, by the way), making a joke about Montalbano not wanting to go to a certain town because he might run into the actor who is playing him. Sadly, nobody told Camilleri about these two rules, and nobody needed to until this book. If you're going to do the post-modernist self-referential thing, go all-in or forget about it. I don't mean they should avoid humor, but they should not mock their own creation.Ģ. Mystery authors should take their own work seriously. He makes reference to the TV series about inspector Montalbano (an excellent series, by the way), making a joke about Montalbano not wanting to go to a certain town Two rules:ġ.
I don't mean they should avoid humor, but they should not mock their own creation. In the end, Montalbano is alone on his terrace, battling melancholy, but he’s comforted by eating a plate of Adelina's marvelous caponata. I like it when Salvo tells Mimi, because he is being confusing, that he's become an “honorary Catarellian” (as Cat is always messing up the language). Then, Montalbano reflects on the future and comments, "Little surprise that Montalbano couldn't tell Camilleri how the story would end." A little series of Pirandello moments from the theater director who loved Pirandello above all. Montalbano thinks the actor, Luca Zingaretti, playing the role, looks nothing like him. One thing I like, since by now the series has been adapted to television i the last book Camilleri has Montalbano reading one of Camilleri’s own novels about him, and then in this book Montalbano says he doesn’t want to visit a certain town because they are filming the tv series based on Montalbano’s exploits. But before that, Livia and Salvo go on a three-day holiday, until Fazio disappears.
The opening features a dying seagull “dancing” on the shore, a precursor to Montalbano (at 58, though by the time this book gets published, Camilleri is in his early eighties) worrying about aging and decline and then, there's the death of multiple people. Solid entry: 1) great food-check 2) Montalbano obsessing about some beautiful woman (and not Livia)-check 3) goofball underlings such as Caterella, and a little violent mafia crime scene, though this time, it’s personal, as it involves Fazio. The opening features a dying seagull “dancing” on the shore, a precursor to Montalbano (at 58, though by the time this book gets published, Camilleri is in his ear #15 in Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano series set in fictional Vigata, Sicily. #15 in Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Salvo Montalbano series set in fictional Vigata, Sicily.