Andrea Camilleri

“You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen. Aglow with local color, packed with flint-dry wit, as fresh and clean as Mediterranean seafood — altogether transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano.” A.J....

Inspector Montalbano is investigating the murder of a disfigured corpse found in a dinghy in the port of Vigáta, Italy, and a luxury yacht with a shady crew docked near may have some answers.

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, with his keen insight into human nature, suspects the link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and occasional prostitute, whose young son steals other schoolchildren's midmorning snacks. But

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Inspector Montalbano's gruesome discovery of the body of a lovely, 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 reclusive violinist who holds the key to the murder.

Montalbano

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Inspector Salvo Montalbano, an honest Sicilian cop, tries to find out who murdered a man that supposedly drowned.

When a colleague extends his summer vacation, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is forced to stay in Vigata and endure the August heat. Montalbano's long-suffering girlfriend, Livia, joins him with a friend, a husband and young son in tow to keep her company during these dog days of summer. But when the boy suddenly disappears into a narrow shaft hidden under the family's beach rental, Montalbano, in pursuit of the child, uncovers something terribly sinister....

On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site--a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts,...

"Two deaths lead Inspector Montalbano into investigations of corruption and power in the twentieth installment of the New York Times bestselling series. Montalbano investigates a robbery at a supermarket, a standard case that takes a spin when manager Guido Borsellino is later found hanging in his office. Was it a suicide? The inspector and the coroner have their doubts, and further investigation leads to the director of a powerful local company....

An unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for its soil rich with potter's clay. Meanwhile, a woman reports the disappearance of her husband, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins who turns out to be related to a local mobster. Then Inspector Montalbano remembers the story from the Bible--Judas's betrayal, the act of remorse, and the money for the potter's field, where those of unknown or foreign origin are to be buried--and slowly,...

"Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call, but this time it's not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who's dialed a wrong number and asks him when he'll be arriving at the meeting. Montalbano, in irritation, says: "In ten minutes." Shortly after, he gets another call, this one announcing the customary murder. A man has been shot and killed outside a bar in front of his three friends. It turns out to be the same man who...