Andrea Camilleri is an Italian crime writer, famous for his long-standing Inspector Montalbano series. Camilleri was born in 1925 in Sicily, where the series is set. I’ve been aware of him for ages, but for some reason, I never felt tempted to read his books. I thought this was a cozy crime series and while I occasionally enjoy them, I’m rarely willing to read a whole series. After reading a few reviews recently, I realized, I was wrong and that this wasn’t a cozy series at all.
Thanks to Stu, who dedicated March to Italian literature, I finally picked up the first in the series, The Shape of Water – La forma dell’acqua.
The Shape of Water, like all the other novels in the series, is set in the fictional small-town Vigàta, in Sicily, which was inspired by Camilleri’s hometown Porto Empedocle, near Agrigento. On the outskirts of Vigàta, there’s the Mannàra, an open-air brothel. And it’s exactly here that the body of the dead engineer Luparello is found. The verdict is – natural causes – something that’s almost unheard of, in a region where the mafia drops body after body. Luparello was a prominent political figure and a lot of people profit not only from his death but from its unsavoury circumstances. Montalbano who is anything but obedient, demands to conduct an investigation. There are too many things that do not add up. Why would someone like Luparello go to a place like the Mannàra? Who is the woman who lost an incredibly expensive bracelet close to where the body was found? Who did Luparello meet with at his love nest?
Montalbano’s investigation introduces us to many striking and colourful characters. We get to know him, his girlfriend, his boss, his subordinates and friends very well. The book also introduces us to a place where corruption and violence are all too common. A place, where the mafia reigns and the police have a hard time keeping up with the crimes that are committed daily.
In his unorthodox way, Montalbano discovers more than one criminal act. And he decides to “play God” as his girlfriend calls it.
I’m so glad I finally read Camilleri because I enjoyed it so much that I have already started book two. This is such a perfect series for so many reasons. It paints an accurate, if somewhat embellished and exaggerated, picture of Sicily, its people, and customs. And its food. Montalbano enjoys good food, and for many readers, discovering all the dishes he eats in the books, is part of the appeal. While the descriptions of the place and its mores is part of the success of the series, the biggest reasons for loving it, is the character of Montalbano. He’s unorthodox, funny, dry, doesn’t suffer fools but has a big heart when it comes to “little people”. Montalbano’s name is an homage to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán. It’s no surprise then, that the inspector reads one of Montalban’s detective novels in this book.
Another aspect that won me over is that this isn’t the kind of police procedural, that most UK or US authors write. The police in this book are chaotic, a bit useless and the investigation isn’t conducted very rigorously. At times it reads like a satire, which I enjoyed very much.
People often wonder, why an author chooses a fictional town. In an interview Camilleri gave a very good reason. While he used his hometown and its surroundings to make the descriptions in the books more authentic, they aren’t particularly violent places and definitely not places where so many people get killed.
I’m not at my most eloquent today. Possibly because I loved this so much. I often find it difficult to write about favorite books. I’m very fond of Sicily and this brought back memories, but even if this hadn’t been the case, I would still have loved it. It’s so colorful and original and Montalbano is one of the greatest fictional inspectors I know.
