The Terra-Cotta Dog

The Terra-Cotta Dog - Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (translator),

This is the second of the Inspector Salvo Montalbano mysteries, which are set in 1990s Sicily.

300 pages may strike us time-pressed readers as too long for a police procedural, but the plot twists and brisk action justify the length. Bringing to mind Josephine Tey's A Daughter of Time (in which a convalescing cop exonerates Richard III through research), Montalbano, recovering from being shot during a meeting with an informer, works on a 50-year-old murder case.

Montalbano is hard to like: arbitrary and secretive with subordinates, abrupt with friends, thoughtless with his mistress Livia, and monstrous toward Anna who foolishly adores him. Half a dozen characters tell him what a jerk he is, but he can't help his behavior.

The translator Stephen Sartarelli has provided an excellent notes section at the end that explains background of Berlusconi-era Italian politics and society and Sicilian culture and phrases.

Other Montalbano Mysteries: click on the title to read a review:

·         The Terracotta Dog — 2002 (Il cane di terracotta — 1996)

·         The Voice of the Violin — 2003 (La voce del violino — 1997)

·         The Scent of the Night — 2005 (L’odore della notte — 2001)

·         Rounding the Mark — 2006 (Il giro di boa — 2003)

·         The Paper Moon — 2008 (La luna di carta — 2005)

·         August Heat — 2009 (La vampa d'agosto — 2006)

·         The Wings of the Sphinx — 2009 (Le ali della sfinge — 2006)

·         The Track of Sand — 2010 (La pista di sabbia — 2007)

·         The Potters Field — 2011 (Il campo del vasaio — 2008)

·         A Beam of Light — 2015 (Una lama di luce — 2012)