Showing results by author "Andrea Camilleri" in All Categories

When a crazed elderly man and his sister begin firing bullets from their balcony down onto the Vigàta street below, Inspector Montalbano finds himself a reluctant television hero. A few days later, when a letter arrives containing a mysterious riddle, the Inspector becomes drawn into a perplexing treasure hunt set by an anonymous challenger. As the hunt intensifies, Montalbano is relieved to be offered the assistance of Arturo Pennisi, a young man eager to witness the detective's investigative skills firsthand.

The lazy, slow month of August at the height of the Sicilian summer is, Inspector Montalbano assures his girlfriend, Livia, as they prepare for a relaxing holiday in a villa he has found for them, far too hot for any murders to be committed. But when Livia's friends' young son goes missing, a chain of events is sparked which will certainly ruin the Chief Inspector's pleasant interlude. A secret apartment and a grisly find in an old trunk are just the beginning as Montalbano navigates his way though the case and copes with the heat.

Maybe a phrase, a line, a hint somewhere would reveal a reason, any reason, for the elderly couple's disappearance. They'd saved everything.... There was even a copy of the 'certificate of living existence', that nadir of bureaucratic imbecility.... What was the protocol, to use a word dear to government offices? Did one simply write on a sheet of paper something like 'I, the undersigned, Salvo Montalbano, hereby declare myself to be in existence', sign it, and turn it in to the appointed clerk?

Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories is a brilliant collection of short stories, personally chosen by Andrea Camilleri, following Inspector Montalbano from his very first case in Vigàta, in which he stumbles upon a young girl lurking outside a courthouse with a pistol in her handbag. When she is taken in for questioning and won't utter a single word, Montalbano must find another way to learn whom she is trying to kill and why.

It's been raining for days in Vigàta, and the persistent downpours have led to violent floods overtaking the Inspector's beloved hometown, sweeping across the land and leaving only a sea of mud behind. It is on one of these endless grey days that a man - a Mr Giuglù Nicotra - is found dead. His body discovered in a large sewage tunnel, half naked and with a bullet in his back.

While Vigàta is wracked by storms, Inspector Montalbano is called to attend the discovery of a dismembered body in a field of clay. Bearing all the marks of an execution-style killing, it seems clear that this is, once again, the work of the notorious local Mafia. But who is the victim? Why was the body divided into 30 pieces? And what is the significance of the Potter's field?

When Inspector Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call it proves to be the start of a very trying day. For the caller expects Montalbano to arrive imminently at a rendezvous with some friends. But before he can reply, the caller announces himself as someone called Riccardino and hangs up. Later that day, news comes in of a brutal slaying in broad daylight by an unknown assassin who makes his getaway on a motorbike. And when the Inspector learns of the victim’s identity - a man called Riccardino - his troubles are only just beginning.

The Terracotta Dog, the second audiobook in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, opens with a mysterious tête-à-tête with a mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist and some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers, dead 50 years and still embracing, are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog.

Motionless, Montalbano waited for the surf to enter his brain and wash it clean with each breaker. At last the first light wave came like a caress, swiiissshhh, and carried away, glugluglug, Elena Sclafani and her beauty while Michela Pardo's tits, belly, arched body and eyes likewise disappeared. Once Montalbano the man was erased, all that should remain was Inspector Montalbano - a kind of abstract function of the person who was supposed to solve the case and nothing more, with no personal feelings involved.

A chance encounter with a strange young woman leads Inspector Montalbano to Vigàta harbour - and into a puzzling new mystery. The crew of a mysterious yacht - the Vanna - due to dock in the area have discovered a corpse floating in the water, the dead man's face badly disfigured. It isn't long before Montalbano begins to become suspicious of the Vanna's inhabitants. Who is the yacht's owner, the glamorous and short-tempered Livia Giovannini? How has she accrued her riches? And why does she spend so much time at sea?

When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Inspector Montalbano suspects a link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other school children's midmorning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life - as well as Montalbano's - is endangered.

Things are not going well for Inspector Montalbano. His long-distance relationship with Livia is on the rocks, he feels himself getting even older and he's growing tired of the violence in his job. Then the dead body of a young woman is found in an illegal dump, with half her face missing. Her identity at first is unknown; a tattoo of a sphinx moth on her left shoulder links her with three other girls bearing the same mark, all recent Russian immigrants to Italy.

Feeling his age as his birthday rolls round once again, Inspector Montalbano decides to cheer himself up by dealing with a young driver's road rage in his own unique way. But his joy is short-lived, as at police headquarters he receives an angry phone call from a supermarket boss; there's been a robbery at his store, and Montalbano's colleague is treating him as a suspect. On arrival at the scene, Montalbano quickly agrees with Inspector Augello that this was no ordinary break-in.

The goats of Vigàta once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily.

He began swimming in slow, broad strokes. The sea smelled harsh, stinging his nostrils like champagne, and he nearly got drunk on it.... In a fraction of a second, Montalbano realized he'd struck a human foot. Somebody else was floating right beside him, and he hadn't noticed. 'Excuse me,' he said hastily, flipping back onto his belly and looking over at the other. The person beside him didn't answer, because he wasn't doing the dead man's float. He was actually dead.

When an angry octogenarian holds a terrified and lovelorn secretary at gunpoint, Inspector Montalbano is reluctantly drawn into the case. The secretary's boss, a financial advisor, has vanished along with several billion lire entrusted to him by the good citizens of Vigàta. Also missing is the advisor's young colleague, whose uncle just happens to be building a house on the site of Inspector Montalbano's very favourite olive tree....

Mimi Augello is visiting his lover when the woman's husband unexpectedly returns to the apartment. Hurriedly, he climbs out the window and into the downstairs apartment, but from one danger to another. In the dark he sees a body lying on the bed. Shortly afterwards another body is found and the victim is Carmelo Catalanotti, a director of bourgeois dramas with a harsh reputation for the acting method he developed for his actors: digging into their complexes to unleash their talent, a traumatic experience for all.

Inspector Montalbano is awake at dawn, sitting on his porch, when his attention is caught by a seagull that falls from the sky, performing a strange dance, before lying down to die. Montalbano is perplexed by what he has witnessed and the scene hangs over him like an omen. About to depart for a holiday with his girlfriend Livia, Montalbano makes a quick trip to the police station to tie up loose ends. But when his dear colleague Fazio is discovered missing, Montalbano instead launches a desperate search for his lost friend....

Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder....

Chief Inspector Montalbano is on enforced sick leave. But when a local girl goes mysteriously missing, the whole community takes an interest in the case. Why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl's impoverished father and dying mother will be able to find a fortune? The ever-inquisitive Montalbano steps in, to get to the heart of the matter in his own inimitable style.