The Terra-Cotta Dog - Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli
This second Montalbano novel is less a whodunit than a meditation on memory, masculinity, and the messiness of Sicilian life in the 1990s. It opens with a bang - literally, as Montalbano is recovering from a gunshot wound - and quickly pivots to a cold case involving two lovers murdered in a cave during World War II, their bodies arranged beside a terra-cotta dog like a ritual offering.
Montalbano is not a likable man. He’s moody, manipulative, and casually cruel to the women who care about him. But Camilleri doesn’t ask us to like him - he asks us to follow him, and we do, because his mind is fascinating and his instincts are rarely wrong.
The plot is brisk, the twists satisfying, and the atmosphere thick with Sicilian politics, corruption, and nostalgia. Translator Stephen Sartarelli’s endnotes are essential reading, offering context on Berlusconi-era Italy and the linguistic quirks of Vigàta’s residents.
What makes this book sing is its emotional undercurrent: the sense that Montalbano is chasing ghosts, not just criminals. The past is never past in Sicily, and Camilleri knows it. The Terra-Cotta Dog is a mystery, yes - but it’s also a lament, and a love letter to a vanishing world.
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