Well this is the latest Inspector Montalbano book which I shamelessly blagged from Macmillan on Thursday and I have just finished it, despite putting it down several times. The reason for this is a bit daft. When I love a book and have been looking forward to reading it for a while, I keep leaving it as I want to make the story last longer, then of course I want to know what happens. Told you it was daft, like knitting a row really quickly before the wool runs out....
When I first started reading the Camilleri books I was not impressed and found them a bit lightweight and the plots slightly on the vague side. I also did not take to Inspector Montalbano very much either and I put this series to one side thinking it was not for me. However, I picked up a paperback a year or so later in one of these cheapo book shops that suddenly sprout up in odd places and stay for six months and then vanish (amazing what gems you can unearth in these as well) and I thought I would give them another whirl. By this time I had discovered, loved and read the entire Donna Leon/Brunetti books set in Venice and I was in full Italian mode and eager to find more set in this country so took this one home and read it - and loved it. Suddenly the characters seemed to click and I found myself laughing at the back chat and insults between Salvo Montalbano and his colleagues, and the absurdities of the simply wonderful Catarella who answers the phone, is incredibly dim and can never enter a room without hurling himself in and crashing the door.
Over the last year I have read all of the Camilleri books and have become addicted. I don't think it is my imagination when I say that reading them all one after the other and in order, I note that they have become better plotted, more intricate and the characterization of Montalbano, his girlfriend Livia and the other members of the police station where he is based, have become deeper and the humour funnier. This latest one is terrific.
As the title suggests the time of this particular murder investigation is in August and the heat is unbearable. Livia and two of her friends, with their small son, hire a house on the beach and Salvo promises to spend time with them as there are never any murders in August. Famous last words when they discover another floor to the house which has a trunk in the corner, and in the trunk ... a body. Livia and her friends depart:
"Livia was spoiling for a fight. 'You're a man who doesn't keep his word' '
'Me?' '
'Yes, you'
'Would you mind telling me when I didn't keep my word?''
''You swore to me there were no murders in Vigita in the summer'
'How can you possibly make such a statement?....at the most I probably said that, with the summer heat, the people planning to kill someone decided to leave it to the autumn'....that murder dates from the month of October six years ago. October - did you get that? Which means, among other things, that my theory was not just hot air?'
Livia hung up"
This is one of the best Montalbano books yet and I finally had to finish it try as I might. Enhanced by the usual wonderful descriptions of food and wine, and the depiction of the intense heat beating down, the reader can really feel the debilitating, sweating exhaustion of Salvo as he struggles to track down the killer.
Great stuff.
Wonder when the next one is due?
