The Shape of Water

Having completed my reading of the two volumes of George R R Martin’s A Storm of Swords in his Epic Fire and Ice series, I am turning back to the Montalbano novels of Andrea Camilleri with The Shape of Water read yesterday and over night 18^th of June 2013. The TV production was shown in the UK in February of last year, nearly a year and half ago yet the story remained fresh in my visual memory as I romped through this first novel of the writer. I believe the TV production is a faithful portrayal of the work as I came to rereading what I wrote of the story at the time.

I commented that I understood” why the first book has becomes the third in the series because of the “softer” approach to criminal activity protecting the reputation of individual.” I now question this observation. I introduce the story saying

“A well known politician is found to have died in a heart attack while being serviced by a prostitute in a notorious beach spot frequented by the lowest level of whores, one of whom an illegal immigrant witnesses the arrival of the vehicle and disappearance of the female involved..” This Montalbano finds out from a former boyhood friend who runs the girls and who provides the Inspector with a list of those he believed to have traded on the night in question together with their addresses. She makes an observation that the woman who was not known to her and who appeared well dressed to be a regular was given a lift almost as soon as she reached the adjacent roadway.

“The story which Montalbano uncovers is complicated.” From the outset there is no suggestion of foul play. The man had a heart condition from which he was being treated and while it is never a good way to die, the dying being the operative word, dying during or immediately after sexual congress is generally regarded as one fo the best of ways of going if one has to!

Because of the man’s political position the establishment of presiding judge, local bishop and other interests in the province want the death quietly buried in order to protect the widow and her son but there is something about the circumstances of the death and its location that puzzles and concerns the Inspector and which rouses his natural instinct to get to the bottom of what happened.” However this is not what it seems.

“A gold diamond encrusted necklace has been found by one of two “street cleaners” who had held on to the find wanting to pawn to gain the funds to take their sick son away for specialist treatment( to Belgium whey where have a relative) which could save his life and which was urgently required.” My understanding from the book is that local doctors were unable to diagnose what was wrong with the lad so they wanted to a different opinion rather than his life was in immediate danger.

“Montalbano tracks down the cleaner and his wife through blagging his way into the home of the other cleaner who discovered and reported finding the body.” This cleaner is a frustrated writer who has made a verbatim note of the decision of the two to advise the lawyer and political associate of the dead man of their discovery and that far from having an emotional reaction to the news about his supposed friend he had told them to report the matter to the authorities, appearing disinterested. This information helps to get Montalbano on to the right track of what had happened especially when the lawyer contacts him about the alleged circumstances of how the necklace came to be lost.

“After hearing the story of the sick child the Inspector gives a receipt for the necklace on the basis that it was handed in on the day of its finding and makes sure the news of finding is out there” and ensure the information that it is in his possession gets about by telling his TV news journalist contact that he does not want any media reference tot he news that the necklace has been discovered in the same area of where the man died.”

“This has the desired effect because the lawyer political fixer of the dead man comes forward to claim the necklace with a cock a bull story about how it came be lost. ”The story is that the wife of a well known person had agreed to having a sexual experience with her husband at this well known spot but when they arrived had changed their minds and she had lost the necklace while getting in and then out of the car.

When I wrote the piece I noted that “I have not grasped some of the essential elements and I am too busy to watch the programme again.” I was not certain about the relationship between the voluptuous, as he was able to find out wife owner of the necklace, a six foot woman from Sweden and regarded as a free spirit, to the dead man. I will try and explain shortly.

“Montalbano agrees to return the necklace said to be worth 70 million lire or more, on the understanding that the finder will be rewarded with 10 million and he then advises the family to immediately make arrangements to take the child for treatment and leave as soon as the money is paid.” At the time fo writing the original piece I attempted to find out the worth of 10 million lire and at the back of each book there are notes to help the non Italian understand some references. From this the amount paid to the street cleaner is £4500 with £5 English money convertible to 11000 Italian lire.

Montalbano refuses to sign off the death from natural causes because of the growing suspicion that the circumstances of the death are suspicious in that although the man was not the kind of politician that the Inspector would want to be friends with, he was not the kind of man to jeopardise everything by having sex in the open with a casual prostitute. This is confirmed by his wife who reveals that her husband had a beach area hideaway not far from the infamous beach in question. The inspector visits finds a gun in a bedside drawer which he leaves, he also finds women’s clothing, wigs and toiletries on the premises. When the wife gains access to the photos of her husbands dead body she fuels his concern by drawing attention that her husband pants are being worn back to front, something would he not ever had done, being a fastidious person and that had he mistakenly put them on that way he would turned them round after going to the toilet, something which he had to do frequently because of medication taken in relation to his heart by pass. Montalbano concludes that he had not died at the site so why go to the trouble?

Further work reveals that there was no direct way given where the husband was known to have travelled to reach the site where the car was found until it is established first through the help of one of his staff, Fazio, that it was possible to take the car along a dried river bed from the coastal cottage although damaging the vehicle’s suspension, and which testing the man’s car also reveals a damaged suspension. Montalbano himself also take the route and this brings me to the second part of the frame up, not just to damage the reputation of the dead man, but the daughter in law of another politician.

The daughter in law and owner of the necklace which she kept in a handbag at the coastal cottage admitted having a brief affair with the dead man but had subsequently become his friend and used the cottage when he was not there for sexual encounters with her father in law. She had been effectively raped by her father in law when at a hotel attending a conference where her husband had to drop out at the last moment.

After that first time he had become obsessed insisting on having sex frequently for which the cottage was used as well as sexually pawing her at very opportunity, often in the presence fo his wife, his son and friends and other family members. He was aggressive tearing her clothes off which is the reason why she kept sets of clothing.

I cannot remember how the woman came to be effectively blackmailed to having ongoing sex with her father in law and to initially repeating the story of how she came to lose the necklace fed to her by the lawyer. What is clear is that as a known rally driver she was capable of driving along the river bed as she does with Montalbano when he takes her to the cottage to break the story she has been pressing on him. Montalbano has a further investigation of the site and the former, now walled and derelict, factory adjacent after insisting on getting a key and entering through the only entrance. Among with the rubbish he finds the handbag of the Swedish wife where her initials are still visible although there has been a crude attempt to erase them. He had gone looking for the handbag because it had not been found at the scene and his witness to the departing woman accompanying the dead man and alleged to have had sex with him, did not report to having the handbag with her as she left the scene.

Having worked out what happened he recounts his knowledge to the Commissioner after he had enjoyed two helpings of baby Octopuses the Commissioners wife. I have commented before on the love Montalbano has of good food and his critical evaluations. Earlier on asking a colleague to visit late he offers a dish of prawns which his help had prepared by his help ( sufficient for four persons) but lacking some seasoning and he also provides some pasta which he prepares for himself. The help had offered her domestic service after he had helped her son from getting into worse trouble and a more severe sentence than was likely.

We are also introduced to his relationship with Livia, who lives on the mainland and he plans to visit at the weekend as long as the work does not detain him. She has expressed concerns about the domestic help but Montalbano reassures adding that he would be surprised if he could find someone better.

Montalbano explains about the cottage and therefore would such a careful man go to a public site. He then explains about the impassable route unless the driver is skilled and that a woman was reported to have driven the vehicle adding to desire on someone part to frame the Swedish wife of another senior politician as she was known to be a rally driver.

The Inspector also points out if the death had occurred as witness subsequently stated why had the woman not reacted emotionally. There is also the suggestion that the when the woman went to the roadway she was immediately picked up without appearing to seek a lift or having to wait at a location where there was little passing traffic.

The man’s wife had explained to Montalbano that apart from the early years of their marriage which saw the birth of a son the couple had not continued sexual relations, moreover the husband was bisexual and has acquired and used the cottage for the purpose. Moreover it became evident from the distress of the beautiful young man, a nephew who lives at the home of the dead man and his wife that his relationship had developed what would normally be expected.

The young man had been with his uncle at the cottage when the death occurred, It was the young man who had used the neck brace he had been using to make it look as if the his lover was alive in the car, using the female clothing and a wig and it was the lawyer who been called in to help who had in turn had devised the plan to use the death to discredit his former political boss and the daughter in law of another rival politician. He pretended to be protecting her and her father in law by getting her to confirm the story that the necklace has been lost sometime before and in the circumstances when she had been there with her husband, knowing that all the clues would lead to her being identified as the prostitute. The cleverness was in persuading the wealthy and influential of the province to all lean on the Inspector to close the case knowing that he would do nothing of the kind and follow the trail that had been set and with the story coming out with its attempted cover up it would remain a scandal finishing the political careers and enabling the lawyer to step in.

Montalbano is able to piece the story together after the lawyer is also found dead and shot with the first reaction of officialdom that this was yet another Mafia shooting of a politician who they felt they would not be able control at the point when he was to have great power.
Montalbano then realises that the murder weapon is the one he found at the villa, and left it there. The nephew is then found dead having gone off the road at a bend high on the cliff side. This confirms that he had taken the revolver, knowing where it was, killed the lawyer for betraying his uncle for his personal political career and then turns the weapon on himself.

Montalbano then tells the story to his mistress Livia when he visits at the weekend as she realises there is an aspect continuing to worry him. Guilty at having left the gun at the Coastal Cottage.

He closes the case much to the delight the establishment but without disclosing or recording all that he knows.

I like the style of writer, assuming the translation is a faithful one because like me he likes to tell everything he feels someone needs know, so a sentence becomes page sometimes two. As I shall recount about the Corleone Crime network, there was, and I suspect remains a very dark side to Sicily through the creation of a totalitarian crime state built up over generations. Camilleri creates a more humorous, lighter world where the crime fighter has time to swim regularly from his beach house, to enjoy good food and to have a loving sexual relationship, but a mistress, to which he is faithful, at least when the series commences.

I wish I had commenced with this nook rather than how the series was shown in the UK with Snack Thief in which in addition to the main interesting tale his relationship change with a proposal of marriage and the intention to adopt the child“ the snack thief” orphaned boy of an immigrant., We are also yet to meet his deputy, Mimi and her behaviour of his desk sergeant who remains the station clown although there is more to him as is revealed as lives of backstories of the main characters begin to unfold. I also seem to have reversed the order in which the books were written and television with the next two, The Terracotta dogs and the Voice of the Violin, which is next.

Montalbano The Shape of Waterr TV Production

Balancing up crime from the perspective of the criminals was the third episode of Inspector Montalbano Shapes in Water, which in fact is the title of the first published book. I forgot to record until well into the programme so had to watch the first part on the BBC I player until reaching the recoded final section.

I can understand why the first book has becomes the third in the series because of the “softer” approach to criminal activity protecting the reputation of individuals.

A well known politician is found to have died in a heart attack while being serviced by a prostitute in a notorious beach spot frequented by the lowest level of whore, one of whom an illegal immigrant witnesses the arrival of the vehicle and disappearance of the female whore.

The story which Montalbano uncovers is complicated. Because of the man’s political position the establishment of presiding judge, local bishop and other interests want the death quietly buried in order to protect the widow and her son. There is something about the situation which rouses the Inspector’s natural instinct to get to the bottom of what happened.

A gold diamond encrusted necklace has been found by one of two “street cleaners” who had held on to the find wanting to pawn to gain the funds to take their sick son away for specialist treatment which could save his life and which was urgently required. Montalbano tracks down the man and his wife through blagging his way into the home of the other cleaner who discovered and reported finding the body. After hearing the story of the sick child the Inspector gives a receipt for the necklace on the basis that it was handed in on the day of its finding and makes sure the news of finding is out there.

This has the desired effect because a lawyer the political fixer of the dead man comes forward to claim the necklace with a cock a bull story about it came be lost.

Now that I come to write I have not grasped some of the essential elements and I am to busy to watch the programme again. He alleges that a wife had persuaded her husband to go down to the site to observe the life having worn the necklace at a social function earlier. The implication is that they had got out of their vehicle to have sex among the dunes and the necklace had not been noted as being lost until later. What with the death it was publicity the family did not want. (The bit I am not sure about is that the wife, a six foot woman from Sweden regarded as a free spirit was married to the man’s son),

Montalbano agrees to return the property on the understanding that the man who found the necklace said to be worth 70 million lire (only about £30000 before the euro) to pay the finder a reward of 10 million and he then advises the family to immediately make arrangements to take the child for treatment and leave as soon as the money is paid. This appears to have taken place without a hitch.

When Montalbano revisits the site he find a hand bag clearly belonging to the wife from Sweden, and the witness to the event describes the woman in the car as tall, not one of the regulars and having left he car made her way to the roadway. The witness also reveals that oddly the woman was immediately picked up by a car as if by prior arrangement. Montalbano turns a blind eye to her illegal status because of her help.

He then visits the widow to pay his respects and finds her a fine woman but no illusions about her husband except that she does not understand the circumstances of his death as he has a cottage by the sea which he used for his affairs. The photo in the car shows that he was wearing his underpants pants inside out something about which he was fastidious and would never do.

Montalbano visit the cottage and finds it is a large villa where they are women’s clothing and a hand gun in a side drawer.

Her gets to know the daughter of the man’s son and her story helps him understand what has happened. It is true that the daughter had been seduced by her father in law who had shown a violent streak and had bullied her into further sex. He had a tendency to tear off her clothes which is why she had clothing at the villa. However she had not been with him the night he died. She had lost the necklace but previously, and she had also lost a bag which had her initials

When the Inspector the widow he had noted the beautiful and distressed nephew who had a petit mal occurrence he was present. Eventually the Inspector is able to establish that the boy had become the lover of the politician and had been with him at the villa on the night of the heart attack. He had called on his uncle’s lawyer for help and the lawyer had seen the opportunity for advancing his own political fortunes within the Party by discrediting the family and in particular the husband of the woman he tried to frame. He had arranged for a contact who was a cross dresser to come out and drive the dead man from the villa via a river bed onto the beach and to the spot where the car was found. He had dumped the necklace and bag hoping that the combined publicity with ruin the political reputation of the family.

The Inspector had taken the Swedish wife to the villa to test out that a car could be driven from their off road to the site where the body was discovered. She is a fast driver of fast cars. She stumbles and hurts her ankle at one point and gets Montalbano to rubs some ointment. She takes off her skirt and comments he is a gentleman when he does not take this as an invitation. When he decides to close the case as requested covering up various aspects she offers herself but again as in the previously episode he is tied to mistress more than he appreciates.

The lawyer is found shot and the Inspector realises that the murder weapon is the one he found at the villa, and left there. The nephew is then found dead having gone off the road at a bend high on the cliff side. He therefore closes the case much to the delight the establishment but without disclosing or recording all that he knows. He has confided in his mistress who is surprised that he has behaved out of character. On reflection despite another messed up weekend with him she appreciates that he was being kind to various people rather than cow towing to the establishment.

Monta;bano Exursion to Tindari TV Production

I seem to have lost several notes on matters which were to be part of Birthday weekend 2012 reports but where the decision was taken as writing to commence to leave to leave until later. This has happened partly because I am so far behind the original plan which had included writing once or twice about important Leveson developments and finishing the Le Carré novel, The Russia House. It is now three thirty in the afternoon and I will continue for as long as I can today although there is some TV viewing to be undertaken as part of the catching up process.

I begin with the latest episode of Inspector Montalbano which I have seen twice having partly slept through the original showing on Saturday. It was the best yet but required close attention and a second viewing to fully appreciate. I have considered how best to present what is also the most complex and intriguing plot full of clever side issues which I shall now spoil by explaining the story from start to finish.

As with a previous episode the story also concerns an invitation for Montalbano to meet with the boss of a Sicilian Crime Family and as on that occasion there is an issue between the old order and their sense of honour and the new who have none. The man in question is ninety years old who has served a prison sentence for 20 years for the killing of 30 people members of his own or other crime families. The conversation is difficult to understand and he appears to be asking Montalbano to arrest his grandson so that he will live, albeit in prison rather than be killed by forces in the new order. He uses a priest to advise one of Montalbano’s closest associates to advise of location where the son can be arrested but when they find the location where he is been hiding, he is dead, his throat has been cut. Later it is established that in fact it is the Mafia family head who has arranged the killing of his grandson before the grandson killed him.

Why this is also the explanation for other mysteries of the episode will be revealed.

The story also involves the death of a young man who has left home and lives in an expensive apartment block. He has been killed by someone he knows having turned to face the person who called out to him as he was about to enter the apartment building where he lived. In the apartment he had the latest computer, camera and audio equipment, including a wide range of pornographic films. He also had half a dozen home made videos which are of sex with individual women.

Montalbano sends the station front office man and general factotum and something of bungling clown but who came top of the computer course to investigate the contents of the computer and he finds that there is only a large number of letters of a sexy nature written to one woman without identifying details and a novel. The man stays all night going through all the large quantity of CD and DVD Roms but is told to leave the videos.

Montalbano is also approached in the office by the son of a couple who have disappeared and at first he passes the case to a colleague until he is told the couple live in the same building as the murdered young man. There appears to be no immediate connection between the two events or with his meeting with the aging Mafia boss.

While these events occur his deputy is away and later the man calls at the home of Montalbano requesting whisky and advising that he is going to marry, the girl is a police Inspector, they both drink a bottle of whisky in celebration. What the deputy has not said is that they have decided that he will seek a transfer rather than the other way round. Their policed chief boss was delighted with the news saying it would break the mafia type band Montalbano leads.
The Inspector arranges with a friendly newsman to announce the disappearance of the couple and the concern of their son. This leads to the information that the couple had taken a coach trip which had stopped twice but also for a third time on the way back at the request of the couple who had stayed in the coach on the previous stops. They had sat at the back.

The coach driver operates two money making schemes. He bans the travellers from using their camera and then takes pictures which he sells to them. This includes a photo of the couple who appear to be looking at what appears to be a following car. It is arranged for the section to be blown up to enable the number plate of the following car to read. It proves to be that of the young man murdered outside their apartment block. Later the couple are found murdered, also shot in the head, at close range and holding hands as if they knew what we to happen to them.

Montalbano is also able to establish that the couple had dramatically increased their savings although the bank book had disappeared. According to the son they had visited an estranged sister shortly before her death but this did not appear to explain the sudden increase in their wealth. Montalbano calls on the former tenant of the sister who inherited the home in the Will and a copy of this reveals that the couple had been left a piece of scrub land and former stable and derelict building of no worth.

The other source of income for the coach driver is from a university student who tries to sell kitchen pans and ware from which he takes a cut. Montalbano arranges to meet the student in a restaurant and when his deputy arrives with information the Inspector senses their an immediate connection between the two so he suggests that the young woman repeats what she has said to his deputy while he has a meal and then make a formal report back at the station thus building on a possible relationship and taking him away from the attachment to the police Inspector who when she rings to contact the deputy Montalbano makes no effort to advise where he or get a message to him.

The sexy live letters appear to be written to a married woman hence the secrecy of the relationship, letters which were not posted but handed on meetings to spice up their relationship. The Inspector works out that because of the secrecy, any video of their relationship will have taped on an overprinted commercial tape but after the first ten minutes. This proves the right theory but still there is need to identify the woman. One of his colleagues suggests that that Montalbano should approach the former Nordic wife and swinger he encountered in a previous episode. She who offered herself but the Inspector resisted, with difficulty. The idea is she will know where a woman would go to have pubic hair professional removed. His colleagues arrange for them to have dinner but Montalbano is late back.

He has visited the former stables, isolated on the coast and locked up as a fortress. He has great difficulty in breaking in which includes trying to shoot the look out. The one lack of credibility in the episode is that he carries in his car the implements for breaking and entering including hacksaw, hammer and chisel. Given his behaviour in general perhaps this is not surprising. He notes that although isolated the place has a strong telephone and electricity connection and inside he finds a large disconnected power box with the inside otherwise seeming to have been cleared.

Injured from his efforts he struggles home to find the woman of his dinner date waiting for him. She administers pain relief lotion. She immediately recognises the woman in her video. It is a friend. The woman like her was a national from another country. She is married to an internally recognised transplant surgeon with an exceptionally valuable picture collection. Two weeks ago, that is before the murders she had suddenly returned to native land.

They sleep in the same bed clothed but there is innocent cuddle but nothing more. Later they have lunch after she has spoken to the woman in the video who has explained that has happened. She said that she taken her lover back to their home believing that the husband was away at his clinic and not returning home but he had and found them together in bed. She had been surprised by her husband’s reaction in that he had said nothing to her and she and the impression he was already familiar with her lover who he had driven home, He had then said she must go away and not return unless he said it was OK for her to do so. It is established that he has closed down the transplant critic who was heavily secure before and now there are armed guards. The man himself appeared to have become a recluse in his home.

The Inspector is then contact by the Mafia boss and this is the penultimate piece in the jigsaw he says he is in urgent needs of a liver transplant because his own is failing and that with the closure of the clinic of the famous transplant surgeon his life is doomed because there is a waiting list of 10000.

Montalbano also reads the novel which appears to be about Robots but when it ends he is sickened by the implications of what he understands to be the story.

This is what is worked out. The new Mafia order looking for new ways to make money had recruited the transplant surgeon with his liking for the expensive pictures to undertake transplants for the rich and famous in the circumstances of security and confidentiality. This would have been legitimate if was not for the use of captured able bodied men, women and children whose bodies are then buried or dumped in the ocean. The murdered young man had been a computer specialist and he had rented the use of the property owned by the couple living in the same block as a communication centre for the enterprise.

I did not understand how the young man had come to met the wife of the surgeon or why he was successful in persuading a number of attractive women not just to have sexual relations with him but to be filmed in such and open way given the lengths to which the criminal undertaking was being kept secret and the way it operated. I also did not understand why the operation had been brought to a sudden end because the surgeon discovered that his wife was having an affair with the young man. However the consequence was that it led to the closure of the operation and the elimination of everyone who could provide a lead to the providers and to past customers.

Montalbano assumed that any attempt to take action would be sat on because of the level and power of those involved as customers as much as providers and he works out a way of achieving the objective. He breaks into the home of surgeon late a night in an attempt to threaten the man into confessing, although there is also the suggestion that he was driven to kill the man because of what his greed had led to. He was being followed by his closest colleagues who intervene in whatever he was doing and takes the man into custody and is sufficiently scared to reveal all that he has been involved with.

The Inspector the wakes up his TV news contact and gives him the story of the arrest of the surgeon and also the connection with the death of the grandson of the Mafia Family boss, and which under his instruction he had kept out of the news until then. His only requirement was that the announcement should be made on the main lunchtime bulletin of the day in order to ensure that there was world wide reporting and therefore it was impossible for the authorities to attempt to cover up the connection with the illegal transplants and the Mafia.

The episode closes as his deputy announces his engagement to the university student the Inspector had introduced him to. They have had a whirlwind romance which the Inspector has encouraged at every opportunity. He was also most affected by the case where the organs of able bodied children had been used to the rich and the powerful. He had called his mistress and she had sense she was needed. She suggested they could also get married at the same time as the deputy. He agrees. They are at a romantic location but one wonders if this will in fact happen.

Montalbano The Turning Point TV production

I must use some credit with Amazon to buy the Wallander books, or at least some of them. First however I will read the Montalbano Books after the discovery that the BBC Four has commenced a second series after the first 9 episodes were shown between February and April this year and achieved ratings averaging 700000. It would be surprising if as with Wallander the BBC did not commission English. Language versions of this excellent series in time. Some twenty or more novels and scripts have been created since 1984, some of which are yet to be translated into the English Language. The BBC series is following the Italian showings which commenced in 1994 with two episodes followed by a similar number in 2000 and 2001. Then in 2002 four episodes were made into TV episodes with two others in 2005, 2006, and the four more in 2008. There was then a gap of three years until 2008 when three more episodes were aired bringing the total to 21. Six of these were scripts without books.

Inspector Montalbano

is much more outgoing but as clever Detective as Wallander. The episode experienced on Saturday evening has a different title from the book, the seventh written and called Round the Mark and which I have ordered and will be delivered on Wednesday along with the other first 11 written between 1994 2008. The BBC title is Turning Point. This is because the episode reflect a potential major change in the life of the Detective.

In this episode Montalbano has decided to resign because of a scandal affecting a mainland force in which it is said evidence was fabricated and suspects beaten up. He is appalled by the behaviour colleagues on the mainland tarnishes all their reputations, especially after similar problem involving the police forced centred on Napoli.

As with the first BBC series the series depends on the interaction between Montalbano and his three colleagues, his deputy Mimi Augello, the former playboy now married to Beba (Beatrice di Leo) who is expecting their first child and the next in command Guisppe Fazio who they refer to as Fazio and the desk officer and general factotum Agatino Caterella who is khack handed and a figure of fun but is also a very serious and dedicated officer with hidden talents which are allowed to emerge from time to time. It is Mimi who guesses what Montalbano has decided to resign and berates him accusing him of betraying his colleagues who are also honest and dedicated.

Montalbano goes off for a swim in a bay near to his house to reflect on what has happened and bumps into floating body which he brings ashore and then lies close to it exhausted. An elderly couple on holiday with a borrowed gun attempt to arrest Montalbano thinking he is a murderer and when having called the station Mini and Fazio arrive the man hits Montalbano on the head with the pistol knocking him down before he can be restrained. The couple then appear on local TV making disparaging remarks about a lack of law and order in Sicily because of its reputation as the home of the Mafia. Montalbano incensed ensures that action is taken on discovering that weapon is not licensed.

Usually he presses the Coroner for the results of the autopsy but this time it is the Coroner who approaches the Inspector charging him with a lack of concern assuming the body is but one of the hundreds of immigrants washed up dead. The body was dead before being into the water for a week or more and because of the current the face cannot be identified but there are indications the limbs had been tied and then cast into the sea at point to make it look as if it was under failed migrant.

The detective is then called to the harbour after a boat with illegal immigrants has been apprehended and Salvo sees a young boy of Middle Eastern appearance perhaps eight or night running off. He approaches the boy and although they speak different languages he is able to establish confidence and reunites the boy with a woman with several other children. The woman is delighted to see the child and then appears to claim her leg is broken as she falls. Later the Inspector finds there is no record of her at the hospital and the ambulance driver confirms that on arrival she said she was OK and had walked with difficulty into the hospital casualty department. This Salvo is told was likely to have been a ploy as there are no security cameras within the hospital which meant the woman would then leave with the children whereas she would have been taken from the harbour and formally interviewed by the police/immigration authorities.

He discussed this situation by phone with his mainland woman friend Livia Burlando played by Kathrina Bohm and also as a voice by Claudia Catani, presumably when the actress left the series or was unable to be filmed. It is assumed that the gaps in this 12 year lasting series is because one or more of the actors was otherwise committed.

In this instance the concerns, shared by the woman friend, are soon realised when an immigrant boy is found dead the subject of a hit and run. He finds this is the same boy who he persuaded to return to the woman he believed was the boy’s mother, A local farmer who witnessed part of what happened at a distance and partially unsighted because of a wall suggests that the boy was deliberately run down.

Montalbano arranges for a colleague to make a mock up of the face from the body in the water, reminding of similar action in the film Gorky Park. Catarella brings the computer generated face suggesting it is that of a wanted criminal. Mimi disagrees about the similarly of likeness. His position appears confirmed when the local Police commander says that the man was buried by his widow a year before.

What the Inspector is able to uncover is a horrific example of child abduction and bringing to Italy for use as spare body parts, to be sold to be paedophiles or for slave labour. The Inspector is helped by journalist introduced to him by the Coroner who is investigating the trade and by Ingrid a female friend who arrives at the station when invited to have dinner only to find the policeman has forgotten but then sees the photo of the dead man who she identified as the man previously believed dead and who taken her for sex to rooms he was using at an otherwise deserted former Tuna Factory close to the beach where the body was found.

It is here that the Inspector and the force lay in wait when getting info of the arrival of next fishing boat filled with young male migrants. The Inspector intervenes when he sees one of the boys beaten for protesting at being given an injection/taking of a blood sample. The children are held at the centre for medical examination and grading for onward selling on the mainland. Montalbano is shot while rescuing the boy killing the gang leader in the process. The episode ends with Montalbano convalescing in a mountain top country treat used by his father and where apart from Mimi who brings him there the only other person involved is a neighbour and former friend of his father who has arranged for the place to be ready for him with bedding and food. He is still considering his future.

Montalbano The Scent of the Night TV production

Now for a television review commencing with the latest Montalbano. The latest episode shown on Easter Saturday April 7th proved to be the most thoughtful. The citizens of Vigata are in uproar because they invested heavily in a company offering 20% interest. The young man responsible came from Milan and had disappeared.

Montalbano becomes involved when one of the investors, an 80 year old, holds the secretary to the company at gun point. Montalbano pretends the conman has been captured and the money is safe to persuade the man to give himself up. There are no leads about what happened to the conman so Montalbano and his team concentrate on the three members of staff.

One young woman is a business graduate taking her final examinations. She lives at home with her parents where the father is deaf. She is something of a vamp tease and has been to bed with the Casanova Deputy who afterwards admitted that he was engaged to another. She has little information to give at first but later remembers little things which help Montalbano towards a solution.

The second assistant is a financial graduate and has also disappeared. He has a rented flat but is also having a beach house built close to where Montalbano lives. He is incensed when he discovers that in order to build the house a large old olive tree has been up rooted. It appears that the man arranged to travel to Germany but over time it is established that he did not do so. His scooter has disappeared along with the car used by the conman when in the city.

The third member of the staff is a very loyal secretary who is convinced the boss will return and explain why he is has been absent. She appears to be the key to unlocking the mystery.
There is only one clue which acting on advice of his number three Montalbano ignores. A crank who has previously seen flying saucers and other amazing phenomenon claims that he saw the vehicle of the missing conman near to where he lives late one night, the night before the young man was scheduled to fly to Germany.

During the episode his deputy Mimi, visits just when Montalbano is about to eat a late evening meal with wine. Mimi is having one of his doubts about getting married to Beba although the date has been arranged in less than a week and Montalbano is to be a witness with Livia travelling for the event. The deputy goes through all his doubts as well as positives, drinks lots of whisky and goes to sleep on Montalbano’s bed while he wakes up having gone to sleep on the couch without touching the meal. The wedding is postponed because the father of his fiancée has a heart attack.

The other story line is that the Judge has been looking at some of Montalbano’s old cases before he was appointed. He challenges the action taken over the orphan boy who he was to have adopted with Livia but then places with the sister of Mimi and the boy said he wanted to stay. So sadly the couple had agreed and the boy had been adopted by the sister and was now part of their family. The Judge also raises the issue of the deposit account which the mother had possessed and the boy inherited when he came of age. Fortunately Montalbano had not kept the pass book but had given it to the Notary for safe keeping and had the official receipt. This he sends to the Judge.

He also checks that the money was still safe and not invested with the conman. He visits the sister to explain about the money. The boy is thrilled to see him and shows him that he can ride on a pony given to him by his adopted father who he now refers to as father. He tells Montalbano that he has decided to become a policeman when he grows up.

This is the story of what happened to the two missing men. It emerges that the conman was gay and had a relationship with the assistant who helped him to move the investor’s money to various offshore accounts. The Assistant had been paid 350000 euros over a period for work on the beach house. When the man started to default on the interest which investors had expected and they started to demand the return of the money, the assistant had got into panic and demanded that the conman arrange for him to leave Sicily and Italy by a route which could not be traced. He had packed two suitcases and left his home cancelling the accommodation and paying in lieu of notice. It is only later that the landlady confirms that he also had with him a brief case and a lap top which he always carried around with him.

Montalbano visits the man who reported the car and finds that he is not the crank which others had said about him. The man takes him to the place where he saw the car and Montalbano takes a launch with his deputy and goes diving, locating the car and a body. It that of the missing assistant shot in the head. He works out that having arranged to meet the assistant he had then shot him and dumped the car and scooter over the cliff. But where was the conman? Why was there no trace of him?

Arising for work undertaken by his assistants, Montalbano goes to see a relative of the Secretary. He finds that she is the daughter of a wealthy family who was so shocked when the second of her parents died that she had not reported the death for several days unable to accept the reality of what happened. She was a teenager when this happened. Separate comments had been made about her inability to accept that her boss was a conman.

The woman is in such a state that she has an accident and accepts the invitation to be driven home where on arrival she insists on showing him the part of the large house in which she lives alone. In the guest bedroom he sees the decomposing body of the missing man. He arranges for a doctor to visit and gives the woman a sedative to keep her asleep for several hours. This provides the opportunity for the body to be removed.

Montalbano works out that the man had gone to her after shooting his assistant and his lover. He was a conman and not a murderer and had gone to pieces following the killing. Not wanting him to be exposed for what he was she had shot the man with the gun he had used on his assistant and then left the body oblivious that it was there or what she had done. Fortunately the lap top and papers in the brief case were retrieved and therefore the investors got most of their money back. Everything is OK but is Montalbano/ He spends time at the cliff top where the car entered the sea. We see nothing of Livia.

Montalbano second TV season part 2

Today I begin my adoration of the second series shown in the UK of Commissario Salvo Montalbano although I will keep up a diary as I watch or listen to sport and my day on day activities.

While there are other characters in the series, the second being shown on BBC Four in original Sicilian, Italian and Sicilian Italian (reminding me of Gibraltar Spanish and English) Commissario (Inspector) Salvo Montalbano dominates each episode from start to finish.

One reference describes Salvo as honest, loyal and decent but I have to disagree. Although Salvo is basically honest he is prepared to break rules and turn the blind eye but always in the course of justice and fairness as well as from his humanitarianism. He is a good guy. He has strong views about integrity, especially of the police dislikes those who pretend to be what they are not or adopt or misuse the power and privileges of office. He has rime for Aging Mafia bosses who want settle issues in the traditional way as long as they know he will take action against them if they are caught breaking the law.

I describe him best as a man who cares and in last night‘s programmes he cannot bear to look or yet another body of a slaughtered young girl. He is loyal to his men and there are no female police at his station or it appears to be the situation in Sicily, but while his head wants him to be loyal to his long term woman friend, Livia who lives and works in Genoa on the mainland, he only resists some of the opportunities which come his way by women, often younger women who adore his looks, his manner and his role.

In the first season shown on the BBC between February and April she appears in several episodes but so far the second series which commenced in August she has only be heard on the telephone. I do not know is this was a writing decision of the author or something which the TV series adapted because the actress was not available to be filmed although he has engaged in phone calls with her in several episodes of the second series to date

It looked as if the couple would marry and live together during the first series, but the truth is Salvo likes his way of life, his home on the beach and his pasta and his fish. Good food at his favourite restaurant or eating out on his balcony overlooking the sea are as important if not more important than a companion in his bed. Livia and the others with whom he has a relationship know that they are a poor second when he is involved in a troubling case, but when on holiday or with a free weekend, he is with them as any woman could wish, or any partner in a same sex relationship.

I will also remind that while the BBC is showing 16 episodes in two seasons this year in terms of published scheduling, they were first shown in Italy from 1999(2) 2000(2) 2001(2) 2002(4) 2005(2) 2006(2) 2008 (4) AND 2011(3). I am acquiring the books to read 11 so far with six episodes written only for TV and will acquire series 1 DVD 10 episodes in the future. I did write about the first episode in the present series Turning Point based on the book Rounding he Mark so that leaves the five others since to cover.

I will also sat at the outset that setting of Sicily is gorgeous as is the orchestral accompaniment and I am constantly struck by the lack of traffic in his town of Vigata. There is grandeur about the towns and often the houses and flats he visits are huge buildings with large rooms, tall ceilings, great wooden double doors and antique furniture. There is a feeling of space, light and warmth although sometimes it is so hot that they struggle to cope and when it rains, it floods down as I have experienced.

While the series is about the work and life of the Commissario he had a team of three men who have been with him throughout. His deputy Mimi (Domenico Augello), a ladies man who is now married with a child but with a roving eye which he finds difficult to control did consider leaving for the mainland when he became involved with a police woman he had met on a course or conference

Their assistant (Guissope) Fazio, is loyal, dependable and often taken for granted and (Agatino) Catarella, came top of the computer course which amazed everyone, usually goes into doors which he bands, often forgets what he has come into say, manages the front desk, the communications system and the police station as far as one can judge. In addition to Livia Mimi’s wife Beba Beatrice di Leo has become a regular while Mimi’s sister and brother law are visited as Salvo keeps contact with the fostered/ adopted boy that he and Livia nearly adopted after his mother was murdered and his father was found dead in an early first season episode.

I begin with latest episode The Wings of the Sphinx which engaged me throughout and touches on the influence of the Mafia and politicians and others have for self protection. A young woman is found dead, naked on a beach with her face obliterated and a butterfly Tattoo on one shoulder, but she did not die there and had been dead for some 24 hours. Salvo works out that she probably died somewhere which was closed on a Sunday and the body removed to be found before the premises opened. He arranges for the photo of the Tattoo to be shown on TV and he is contacted by an old man who had a carer arranged from him when the relative who looks after him had to be away. The girl was Russian and lived in, she had come to Italy via an organisation and then was helped by an organisation which liked to be called an association and which used volunteers to recruit prostitutes and girl who worked in clubs to save them for a better life and looked after then at an establishment which could accommodate over a dozen of the girls. This girl had suddenly left. It was not the dead girl however but the Tattoo is identical

When Salvo is going home one night he is overtaken by a fast car driven by Ingrid who was part of a previous story with an important husband now a Member of Parliament in Rome, spending a lot of time away. She is also a womanly with a history and I believe she had a temporary relationship with Montalbano. She cancels her engagement claiming a headache after learning that Salvo is on his own and that a meal has been prepared by his housekeeper. Over the meal she asks about his current cases and he mentions the murder and the Tattoo. This startles the woman who mentions that she a live in young female help with a Tattoo on her shoulder who had come from Russia and who had disappeared taken jewellery with her.

The girl has been located by her husband’s accountant who comes to the station after being contacted by the friend and he mentions the association, a charitable body which is run by a priest akin to a bishop. This is an influential man who criticises Montalbano for being five minutes late and who explains that while he is the Patron and Treasurer, he has not met one of the young women in the five years of his involvement. He puts Salvo in contact with his Director of Operations and from that meeting Salvo is taken to where the girls live by two of the volunteers including the man who recruits the girls on Saturday evenings. Afterwards there is a complaint that Montalbano had undertaken a raid on the organisation and he is given only four days to complete investigation by his superiors and told not to upset or involve the Association further except without exceptionally good grounds. Neither of these girls can be found nor the murdered girl named.

Then the elderly man calls on Montalbano and says he saw the girl when returning from a visit by bus heading in the direction of a Parish Church. Salvo visits and finds the priest is working out and a former boxer who denies having contact with the girl or knowing her present whereabouts but expresses strong disapproval of the charitable organisation. Salvo is convinced the priest does know where the girl is but is protecting her.

There are then two developments which enable him to begin to solve the mysteries. The son of his visiting housekeeper who is in prison (covered in a previous episode) asks to see Montalbano to mention unofficially that a hardened criminal who had shared his cell had admitted to being in love with a Russian girl who had lived with him and the man had changed as a consequence. The girl had a butterfly on her shoulder. The man and the girl are not at home when the Commissario visits.

He is then contacted by the fire service because of a fire at a paint shop which is unusual as well as suspicious and where the owner lives in a flat above. The evidence is that the fire started within and where there are no sings of forced entry but it is not an insurance fraud as the man is of good means. Salvo Fazio visits and do a double act in the questioning. They check if the man has a revolver which Salvo points out they will be able to check if it was recently fired. They ask if he has a safe or where does he keep the takings from the weekend and he shows them his desk where the taking before the fire are still kept. Although they leave they expect the man to come to them with an admission. He had been woken at night to find someone in the flat and later followed to where they were riffling the till. He had called for the individual to stop and the pulled trigger killing the person with the second shot fired. This accounted for the traces of material found inside the skull as the thief had covered their face. There have also been traces of a substance used to create gilt effect under the finger nails and when her had fired a quantity of the substance had covered the body. He had found that the person was dead and the female cleaner. He had disposed of the body where it was found and thought he had got away with it but then the news had mentioned that the persons teeth and been smashed by the force of the bullet and would been still at the scene of the murder. For this reason he had attempted to burn down the shop and not just the clothing of the girl and his own.

Then the man who did the recruiting is shot in his car in the face. How can this be? The answer comes with a message from the son of the cleaner in prison to say the likely whereabouts of the criminal who had shared a cell. It was his girl who had been killed and he had taken his revenge in the same manner on the man who recruited her. The man is captured at the place where the son of the cleaner housekeeper said he was likely to be hiding.

Before the capture Salvo received a message from the former boxer priest to say that the missing girl who worked for the old man was with him as was one of the other girls who had been badly beaten up and had come to his home for refuge via the girl already with him. They were both willing to testify in court their story. There were four girls from Russia who had come to Italy with the promise of work via an agency whose families had struggled to find the money for a ticket. Each group of girls was given a different Tattoo and in order to repay the full cost of their passage and stay to those sending them and their families they not only had to work in the clubs but go with men afterwards. The Welfare association seemed a good way as the organisation they would also arrange for their release from their existing contract and commitments. However they were then told to steal jewellery or valuables from where they were placed and they would be able to retain a quarter of the value. It was from a photograph of all four girls together that Salvo was told the dead girl friend had been the girl friend of the criminal. Because of his backgrounds and involvement the welfare group had been unable to do anything when she left them and went to live in with the man but she had wanted to send money to her family and had persuaded to be allowed to work further and agreed to go for the weekend takings at the paint store. The priest urges Salvo to ensure those involved go to prison and he says he will do his best. He is told to pass on the case which he willingly does because of the wish to spend a few days with Livia. He tells the person taking over and the media sufficient to ensure the organisation is exposed despite all those seeking who protect it.

Before saying more about the relationship with Livia there is one other story in the episode which has its amusing moments. Unattractive older women call to say her husband was kidnapped and where inquiries reveal he had money with him and his passport. There has been no request for a ransom although a delay sometimes occurs in such cases. When the media become interested in the story a business man contacts Salvo to say that on a visit to Cuba where he has three girl friends he had seen the missing man in a club with an attractive young woman. He appeals for discretion as he has a wife and child back in Sicily. Salvo arranges for his face to be blocked from the photographic proof with him and breaks the news to his wife who denies it is husband or that he would do something like this. The husband reappears saying he was released and his passport taken as well as the money on him. It appears he is financially dependent on his wife and the kidnapping ploy was a way to get a short break away from her.

At the dinner with Ingrid Salvo admits that he got into a rage at Livia when she returned for the hotel with a male friend and his yacht and he had admitted to her he had a short relationship with a young girl. They had broken up and although he wanted contact again he was not sure of the reception. Ingrid says that given the length of time they were together he should persevere and he attempts to ring her several times without success. Eventually she rings and it is agreed that they will spend a few days together at a neutral venue, but only when the current case is ended.

Because oft he way the case develops Salvo is able to meet her flight and as she has said if he fails to arrive she will return home he books the next fight back to Genoa where she lives. He arrives in the rain and finds that she has set off without her mobile which explains what he was unable to contact her during the day to explain what was happening. She instead of returning had gone to his home when he is able to contact on the land line. It is left open if they get together on the remaining days of his holiday.

　

The previous Saturday’s episode was called August Flame (22 September) with the story from the book August Heat and Mimi has rented a holiday home from where their son disappears and both parents are frantic. Salvo investigates and finds that the boy has gone exploring and has found his way into a sealed second holiday flat built in the cliff side partly under the second. This has nearly been completed with doors and windows ready to be installed but in a way which is not recognisable as a flat from the grounds of the home where Mini and his family are staying.

In a corner there is large chest which when opened reveals the remains of a fifteen year old girl. She has lain there for a number of years and is found to be the identical twin of someone who is now a young woman and who makes a play for Montalbano as soon as she meets him.

Suspicion falls on a number of people as the owner and developer of the holiday home project are identified, including a cranky neighbour while the developer appears to have a cast iron alibi and he is eventually trapped by using the girl as bait and arranging to meet him at the lower home which is the process of being sold after planning permission is contained. The two men who worked on the home are interviewed and eventually eliminated from the investigation. Because of the risk Montalbano gives he girl his gun and when she is attacked she shoots the murderer of her sister dead before Montalbano who is waiting nearby out of sight can intervene. He takes responsibility for the death and the parents of the dead girl buy the holiday complex to leave empty because it had become the grave for one of their daughters. I was left feeling unhappy and concerned at the way the episode ended feeling that the girl had shot the man too readily.

The previous week, the Game of Three Cards was an original telescript with two stories which as far as I can remember are unrelated apart from featuring two single minded women one I will describe as sexually gorgeous who is the wife of a wanted villain on the run who commands the attention of Mimi, causing Salvo concern because of the potential threat to Mimi’s marriage with Beba (Beatrice). Because of the attention he has given to the wife it is Salvo who discovers that the home has several possible exits and possibly a hideaway enabling the husband to visit and leave without being spotted by those keeping watch. The criminal is eventually caught to the relief of Salvo while the wife continues to strut her stuff about the town.

The main story arises when the Commissario is approached before eating at his favoured restaurant by the accountant of a constructor called Tarantino who is said to have been killed when full of drink close to his home in a hit and run. The accountant is convinced there is something wrong with the declared finding. The significant first piece of evidence is that several years before, as much as twenty years prior to the hit and run death a man Rocco Pensinni was convicted of the premeditated death of the partner of Tarantino in order to be able to marry the wife who had become his lover. Why he should have killed then killed partner and faked the death to look like a hit run was something which Salvo rightly questions. It is when a second man is found dead close to the isolated home of a Shepherd and whose features look as if they have been altered that separate events begin to link up. The man, Granieri has been away from Sicily for two decades and was part of a Mafia family, the same family with whom the constructor is found to have had dealings enabling him to win contracts. With the death of his partner he was able to control the whole company.

Granieri is found to have had a distinctive voice, obtained via a phone message. A key person in establishing the connections is the sister of Rocco who is blind but remembers a visitor posing a utility official who called on the day of the murder for which her brother was convicted. She identifies the man as the same as the voice. She also mentions that on the night in question she and her brother had been invited out but he stayed home and she had gone alone. He was staying in because his lover had called and said she would visit as she had done on many previous occasions with the sister hearing her footsteps and going to room of her brother. In this instance she had not come and therefore he had no alibi.

What emerges from flash backs is that the woman wanted the relationship to continue as it was but Rocco could not share with the husband and threatened to tell the husband, his employer that the relationship was continuing having promised that it had ended after it had been discovered by the husband. The lover had threatened to shoot himself thus disclosing to the wife that he had a weapon in his room. What had then happened is that Tarantino wanting to get rid of his partner and the woman Renata de Mora wanting to get rid of her lover and husband had told the assassin about the gun and he had taken it posing as an official and then Renata had failed to turn up which would have given her lover an alibi while the husband was shot. This belief is confirmed after the police had circulated a photo of Granieri and Rocco calls at the station to say he had been contacted by Renata when he was released from prison but he had not responded at first but had then gone unannounced the following day and seen the man in the photo having a heated conversation with his former lover. The man had gone off as soon as Renata had seen him approaching. He had also seen the man observing him at his home.

Salvo put the case against her to Renata and at first she tries to bluff but then admits knowing there is no proof with the death of both the contractor and Granieri. Granieri has come back and killed the contractor although I cannot remember if this was on behalf of the Mafia or on his own account. Rocco visits to say he is making a fresh start in Rome and appears amazing relaxed and accepting about the injustice which led him to spend two decades in jail. The reason why Granieri was found dead close to the Shepherd‘s home is established when it is found that the dead man is the son of the Shepherd. He has killed his son finding out the kind of man he was and pleads with Salvo to be allowed to end his own life with the gun he used on his son. This happens.

In Patience of the Spider which is based on a novel Montalbano is still on official on sick leave when a young girl goes missing and the whole community becomes concerned. The assumption is that she has been kidnapped for ransom. My recollection is that early on I worked out what actually happened and was delighted that Salvo finds a way to temper official justice with great humanity.

Salvo is woken by Catarella at six in the morning and is his usually khack handedness in explaining the situation. At first he is told the scooter of a young girl has been found and then when told the owner is missing Salvo is still not convinced it is a matter for himself and asked for Mimi and Fazio who are also at the scene which only underlines his reaction to getting the call. It is Mimi who has told Catarella to contact his boss and still unconvinced Montalbano challenges Mimi on arriving at the scene to be told the situation looks bad.

I am going to tell the story from the solution backwards. Many years ago the brother of the wife of the girl who has been kidnapped needed a huge amount of money which the family raised but never got back even when their daughter needed money to go away to study. The wife had become sick with the a situation in which despite their lovely home they had come to live on the pension of the husband and the help of his brother who had also loved the wife to the extent that he devoted his life to the couple and his niece rather than lead a separate life apart from his practice as a medical doctor.

Having rescued him the other uncle had turned his back on the family and having prospered was embarking on a political career. His sister’s health had continued to deteriorate, and she had taken to her bed and required 24 hour care shared by her husband and their daughter.

At first Salvo speculates that the daughter had run off unable to cope, perhaps a break down or perhaps she has found someone else other than her boyfriend who is studying law with the ambition to join the police force. Salvo is able to gradually to work out what I suspect from the outset that this was no real kidnapping but a staged action to gain revenge and destroy the reputation of the uncle who had betrayed them and destroyed the life of his sister.

The plan had been executed with the help of the brother doctor and the discrediting was successful and when the Commissario makes the point that he cannot allow them to keep the money the girl explains that it has already been distributed to a dozen international charities, Salvo who has said the visit is not officially is doubly pleased, to have his suspicions confirmed and by finding that the girl was well motivated and has an important future as she goes off to work for an international agency.

He had learned that the girl and the boyfriend did not have sex until the day she disappeared and that on returning to the family she had broken with the young man. Given that she made application for the welfare work months before Salvo knows that she had planned everything during the hours she had spent at her mother‘s bedside.

He had been able to trace where the girl had been kept by enlarge one of the photos which the alleged kidnappers had sent. This enabled him also to get to where the money had been replaced with newsprint notes before the media arrived and printed that the ransom had not been paid. In fact despite the publicity against the uncle would be politician, he had been contacted within moments of the kidnap and asked to pay the ransom which he was willing to do, especially as the kidnapped girl was a close friend of his daughter. The contact was made hours before the same demand was made to the father the girl. It was all fair and a good form of justice.

In the second of the second season episodes Equal Tine Montalbano is convinced hat what appears to have become a Mafia war because of killing is not what it seems but it is only late on the he appreciates there is a connection between the death and the disappearance of a girl from the Ukraine who had been living as a live in help to an elderly man. He had reported to her missing only a couple of days after she had not returned from her day off. We the viewers had seen that a girl with a scooter and been chased by two men in a car and appeared to have gone for help at a home of man living in an isolated cottage.

Catarella when out collecting snails which a relative cooked into a special dish for him then discovers the scooter which he brings into town. Later Salvo finds that on her day off she girl, Eva, had met up with two other economic migrants who express great concern for the welfare of their friend. By checking out the area where the scoot was found Salvo comes to the cottage and its owner who used to be called half witted but also harmless. It is Catarella who also puts Salvo on he train of what happened when he draws attention that although the cottage holder kept a couple of sheep the quantity of dropping suggests visits of a substantial number. In order to confirm the theory he arranges for one of the female friends of the missing girl to dress up exactly and Salvo bring the man and the girl together and from this the man confirms that a Shepherd who it is subsequently established is called the Puppeteer calls on his route around the hills with his flock, brings him cheese, bread and wine when staying the night and had had taken the girl with him as he had on a previous occasion in the instance of another girl from the area who had disappeared several years before. The unit track the Shepherd to his home where they come under fire and it is Catarella who kills the man before Salvo or other members the team are killed. The girl is found and is taken to hospital when he friends are with her. One of the friends gives to Salvo copies of photos she found in the girl’s underwater draw which reveal that he girl had been seeing a married member of a Mafia family the Bonspeniero’s that has started the Mafia War and which Salvo had major doubts.

The man had run a quarry business for his father and his wife tolerated his affairs with girls until in this instance it became serious and he wanted to leave her for the younger woman. What is then established is that the wife and used one of her men to kill her husband who was first hit on the head and then shot to make it look like a Mafia revenge killing. She had then made the mistake of ordering the death of the girl who recovers and is able to confirm the relationship and intention for them to be together with Salvo who summons the heads of the two Mafia families, he orders the man responsible for the original murder to give himself up and fort he wife to present herself at the police station for questioning. The man gives himself up, but the woman had to be arrested at the Quarry at which she had taken over its management. She commits suicide rather than be taken. I have thirteen of the fourteen books of those translated into English including the episode next week. There are two later books yet to be translated which included.