I will begin with what has been the great event of the weekend a new series of Montalbano created for Television by Andrea Camilleri and covering his arrival in Vigate as a newly promoted Police Inspector in charge at the age of 32 something of a new police station with some staff assigned and getting the establishment habitable.
The Young Montalbano series commences with him working as a Deputy Inspector located in a mountain countryside station based in a country market town. The Inspector admires Montalbano and supports his promotion and move to a district more to his liking. The Inspector is also leaving but before they both depart there the case of a body discovered by an isolated shepherd
The new series opened with a boy observing a lorry spilling a box of some fifty army mountaineering boots which he keeps and some four decades later the evidence suggests that one boot has been used to brutally stamp on the head of the victim. While the local magistrate who does not get on with Montalbano is convinced the evidence points to the shepherd. Salvo is not convinced especially after interviewing the man and hearing his story.
Salvo is having a passionate affair with a young woman and not remembering the credit or the name used in the episode I have not worked out if this is Livia who is listed as appearing in four of the six episodes when broadcast in Italy last year. When the girl friend visits and they go to the local market she is attracted to a dress but before Salvo is distracted his attend is on a pair of mountaineering boots and possibly the missing pair from those still held by the shepherd. This proves correct and is eventually traced to local gangster leader with the shepherd exonerated.
Salvo witnesses a car accident where the driver of one vehicle badly beats up the driver of the other and proves me a young member of one the major crime families in Sicily and the new Inspector is approach the thee lead lawyer in attempt to place the incident in perspective when he is called to give evidence for the prosecution. Salvo does no such thing.
At the court he notices a young woman behaving as if upset and when his car breaks down he finds that she is on the same bus taking him back to Vigate. When he approaches to ask if she needs help she pulls a gun on him, so she is arrested refusing to talk and to eat. Finding out who she is and why she has behaved in such a way in the case becomes the focus of the attention of the attention of the growing new team at the station.
This includes the arrival of the young Caterella who is overjoyed to be allocated to serve at the station and jumps at the opportunity of being in charge of the telephone switchboard and the reception desk. We also meet an older than expected Fazio, except from the Credits on the IMD database i worked out that this is the father of the Fazio of some twenty years later. Mimi Augello his deputy will appear later according to this database featuring in four of the episodes.
The story that emerges is of an attractive young woman of a hard work traditional Sicilian family who is adducted, raped by the same son of the leading mafia family involved in the court case where Salvo was the principal witness and who had passed her over to his henchmen for their pleasure before warning that if revealed his identity not only she but her family would be killed. She had therefore kept silent and born the shame and rejection of her mother when she was found to be pregnant and needed a secret abortion. She lived in an outhouse through the kindness of her father but separate from the family, an outcast.
I find that I confused about aspects of the story and although I have recording still at home. She had taken the gun from a former employer and he became a suspect after Salvo had broken into his home and found the man’s store of illegal weapons and other incriminating material about his nefarious activities. With the help of Fazio they manage to begin to get the girl to tell her story but because they do not have grounds to detain her in custody Salvo employs her has a cleaner at the station and allows her to use his flat with he going to stay at a hotel.
Told to buy the dress from the market by his girlfriend he gives this to the girl as a means of gaining her confidence but he does not then believe the story that she had been given the gun a henchman of the perpetrator after visiting the attacker in prison and told to kill and official at the court house. The official selected deals with minor civil cases and Montalbano finds him working behind a mountain of paper files and an unlikely candidate for the assassination. She had cooked up the story to incriminate her attacker, selecting the official as someone who had dealt with a land boundary case involving her father and who she would pretend was the intended victim if her plan went awry.
Having pieced together what happened and getting the girl to confirm the truth and willingness to give testimony in court if necessary he then gives the lawyer working for the crime family two options one which involves the son admitting to a different crime thus protecting the girl. The young man is also beaten up as punishment by the Mafia family and put into hospital.
The girlfriend arrives back having been delayed trying to arrange help for her mother and the victim proves an ideal solution wanting to get away from the area with a fresh start. The victim has the wit to say she bought the dress at market when the girlfriend recognises it is the one she had told Salvo to buy for her.
Thus the new series has all the successful ingredients of the originals series and the books where I am enjoying reading the paper moon. There are several reference to his penchant for good eating and in this instance for cooking but lacks all the details which makes the books that much more enjoyable. He also has an uneasy meeting with his father who comes to visit on learning he ahs moved to Vigate, finding him eating at a Trattoria and where he orders some food so to eat in silence as commanded by his some so we are introduced to his insistence of the silent eating to enjoy the textures, flavours and aromas of the dishes.
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