Showing results by author "Andrea Camilleri" in All Categories

Set once again in Sicily, The Patience of the Spider pits Inspector Montalbano against his greatest foe yet: the weight of his own years. Still recovering from the gunshot wound he suffered in Rounding the Mark, he must overcome self-imposed seclusion and waxing self-doubt to penetrate a web of hatred and secrets in pursuit of the strangest culprit he’s ever hunted.

In Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected 21 short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy's famous detective through highlight cases of his career. From the title story, featuring a young Deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to "Montalbano Says No", in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case, this volume is an essential addition to any fan's collection and a wonderful way to introduce listeners to the internationally best-selling series.

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, a world just as slimy and impenetrable as mud.

Interest in Andrea Camilleri's taciturn but epicurean inspector is at an all-time high. And with three of the last five novels in the series, including the award-winning The Potter's Field, hitting the New York Times bestseller list, this latest installment is certain to up the ante and win over a multitude of new fans. In Treasure Hunt, Inspector Montalbano is hailed as a hero after news cameras film him scaling abuilding, gun in hand, to capture a pair of unlikely snipers. Shortly thereafter the inspector begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to a treasure hunt. Intrigued, he accepts, treating the messages as amusing riddles - until they take a dangerous turn.

Two deaths, the suicide of a newly laid-off worker and an unscrupulous businessman found murdered, lead Inspector Montalbano to inspect the Halcyon, a nearly abandoned mysterious ship with no passengers.

A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigàta police headquarters. But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's brutal "New Mafia".

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 10 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 called him.

Montalbano's gruesome discovery 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.

A wave of refugees has arrived on the Sicilian coast, and Inspector Montalbano and his team have been stationed at port, alongside countless volunteers, to receive and assist the newcomers. Meanwhile, Livia has promised their presence at a friend's wedding, and the inspector, agreeing to get a new suit tailored, meets the charming master seamstress Elena Biasini. But while on duty at the dock one late night, tragedy strikes, and Elena is found gruesomely murdered. Between managing the growing crowds at port, Montalbano works to weave together the loose threads of the unsolved crimes.

Montalbano's latest case begins with a mysterious tête à tête with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead him to an illegal arms cache in a mountain cave. There the inspector finds two young lovers, dead for 50 years and still embracing, watched over by a life-sized terra-cotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him on a journey through Sicily's past and into a family's dark heart.

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.

Mimi Augello is visiting his lover when the woman’s husband unexpectedly returns to the apartment; he climbs out the window and into the downstairs apartment, but one danger leads to another. In the dark he sees a body lying on the bed. Shortly after, 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. Are the two deaths connected? Inspector Montalbano finds all of Catalanotti’s dossiers and plays and the notes on the characters....

Vigàta is bustling as the new filming location for a Swedish television series set in 1950. In the production frenzy, the director asks the locals to track down movies and vintage photos to faithfully recreate the air of Vigàta in that time. Engineer Ernesto Sabatello, while rummaging in the attic of his house, finds some films shot by his father from 1958 to 1963 - always on the same day, March 27; and always the same shot, the outside wall of a country house. Montalbano hears the story and, intrigued by the mystery of it, begins to investigate its meaning.

"Sono otto le "mosse" narrative che Camilleri si concede lungo le otto colonne e le otto traverse della sua geometrica scacchiera del racconto: tra i quattro lati del libro, e nell'ordine chiuso di un romanzo-matrioska che dentro di sé inclina, procedendo di racconto in racconto, di tensione in tensione, sull'asse unico dell'attività investigativa del commissariato di Vigàta. Più che racconti lunghi sono romanzi ristretti quelli che qui si spintonano a vicenda e concorrono al disegno unitario: uno compie un giro, l'altro ricomincia.

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? Inspector Montalbano and the coroner have their doubts, and further investigation leads to the director of a powerful local company. Meanwhile, a girl is found brutally murdered in Giovanni Strangio's apartment - Giovanni has a flawless alibi, and it's no coincidence that Michel Strangio, president of the province, is his father.

Early one morning, Silvio Lupanello, a big shot in the village of Vigata, is found dead in his car with his pants around his knees. The car happens to be parked in a rough part of town frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers, and as the news of his death spreads, the rumors begin. Enter Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Vigata's most respected detective, who has his doubts about the way Silvio died.

Il commissario Montalbano indaga tra l'immaginaria Vigàta e Tindari, il promontorio a picco sul mare "col piccolo, misterioso teatro greco e la spiaggia a forma di una mano con le dita rosa". Un triplice omicidio è avvenuto - un giovane dongiovanni che viveva al di sopra dei suoi mezzi apparenti, due anziani pensionati seppelliti in casa che improvvisamente decidono una gita a Tindari. Li collega, sembra, solo un condominio.

Inspector Salvatore Montalbano wakes from strange dreams to find a gruesomely bludgeoned horse carcass in front of his seaside home. When his men come to investigate, the carcass has disappeared, leaving only a trail in the sand. Then his home is ransacked, and the inspector is certain that the crimes are linked. As he negotiates both the glittering underworld of horseracing and the Mafia’s connection to it, Montalbano is aided by his illiterate housekeeper, Adelina, and a Proustian memory of linguate fritte.

I moti del 1848 in Sicilia come pretesto per rivalse trasformistiche da parte del notabilato: in questo contesto si svolgono due efferate stragi sulle quali le autorità si affrettarono a stendere un velo di silenzio. La prima strage avvenne a Porto Empedocle, dove il maggiore Sarzana si liberò in un sol colpo di 114 detenuti, soffocandoli e bruciandoli vivi in una cella comune; la seconda ebbe luogo a Pantelleria, dove ad opera di mafiosi e proprietari furono giustiziati 15 contadini in base a pretestuose accuse.

With their dark sophistication and dry humor, Andrea Camilleri’s classic crime novels continue to win more and more fans in America. The latest installment of the popular mystery series finds the moody Inspector Montalbano further beset by the existential questions that have been plaguing him of late. But he doesn’t have much time to wax philosophical before the gruesome murder of a man—shot at point-blank range in the face with his pants down—commands his attention.