Last night I faced what I assumed was the last Montalbano, albeit the young version, for some time but at the end of the programme a new series was announced with on checking 4 episodes so it is evident we are catching up with the TV shows in Italy. For this final programme Seven Mondays Livia is planning a holiday which she desperately needs and with booking time off and arranging fro someone t cover her work she presses Salvo who appears just as enthusiastic to be there. She has also arranges for them to go for Sunday lunch with his father and when they visit he is sitting down with all his workers but as soon as the meal is over and the workers plus Livia enjoy some dancing he clashes with his father over the childhood when he visited the father after the death of his mother and found that he had remarried with a new family and believed he was not wanted especially by the potential step mother. He leaves angry and driving dangerously Livia presses him to slow down and eventually he stops and asks her to drive.
Because of the events of Seven Mondays he revisits the cemetery where his mother is buried and returns on the anniversary of her death only to find his father also there and there is the beginnings of a reconciliation between them.
Because of the same events he forced to pull out of he holiday so Livia refuses to spend the time at his home waiting for him and goes of on holiday, Salvo is concerned, jealous of the what she might be up to and finds that she has gone Skiing in the Alps and puts Caterella onto trying to find out where she is by ring every hotel. It is only towards the end of the programme and as it transpires towards the end of the holiday that she is tracked down, packing up to leave with her companion according to the hotel, a name which can apply to men as well as women(significance here with (Andrea Camilleri I suspect). Salvo goes to her home where she has not arrived and waits all day at a nearby cafe and is asleep when she arrives back with her mother who is pleased to meet him and he is persuaded to stay for a few days.
The first story in the episode is stand alone with the murder of a widower with his body discovered by a neighbour a widow who looked after his home and who were companions together since the deaths of their respective partners, but nothing more. She blames the son with a history of arguments with thefather and who had taken to drink. While the woman is comparatively poor and dependent on the work she does for the neighbour and he is wealthy. Everything points to teh son who is arrested and held in custody but by a piece of good fortune for him he has to be released much to the anger of the female neighbour.
A man is arrested after a break in robbery and instead of the usual denials he admits the offence and is pleased when Salvo agrees to his request not to arrest him for a month during which eh time he needs to dispose of the stolen items in order to purchase urgently needed medication of his seriously ill wife. He then reveals that he saw the man accused of the murder of his father in a drunken sleep when he went to commit the theft and was still there when he returned thus providing an alibi. The murder is solved when the Inspector is able to find that the man had changed a Will leaving everything to the neighbour back to his son. She had murdered the man for the betrayal and it is evident that she was no more than a hired help, rejecting the advances he had made to her.
Thus I come to the main storyline of Seven Mondays which in many ways was drawn out, enjoyably though but in other circumstances one would have said with padding .On the first Monday young Fazio deals with an incident in which a fish is shot with a note left but is indecipherable because of rain and blood. Montalbano tells him to say the fish is required a evidence, take it home and eat it. In the second a chicken is shot and the note says something about continuing to contract. The third is a pet dog, the fourth a Goat . The fifth a donkey and the sixth a Circus Elephant all with similar types of notes. They struggle to work out the meaning of the notes and the shooting except that Mimi works out that he is killing a bigger creature each time.
Through the help of his TV newsman friend he consulates a religious hermit in his church home full of books gathering dust and he draws attention to the opening of the Indian text of The Kabala and which describes the creation of the universe akin to the Big Bang, at least that is the interpretation I was able to place.
As a consequence of the visit and the advice given attention turns to an elderly pupil of the religious man and when the Inspector tries to contact he finds from his sons that the man disappeared seven years before while swimming and while this appears to be significant the truth is somewhat different.
Salvo has worked out that the choice of animal owner was governed not by size or previous contact but by the surname initial which taken together appeared to spell out the creation by God occurring, again, but instead of a second coming the thought is some kind of destruction or massacre on the next Monday. As a precaution they assemble all those in the community with last surname initial of 0, the missing letter from the message and this includes the brothers of the missing grandfather who are entertained in the local theatre with a suitable family film although from the clip shown, Mimi’s notion of suitable family film is questionable.
When they undertake a roll call before the film commences one of the brothers is missing and they learn that he has became disturbed since his wife and child died in a road traffic accident. They learn he has been living at the home of his dead father and disappeared grandfather and when they visit they realise he is the person they have been looking for. They go tot the cemetery where they find that in the tunnels beneath these have been mined with the intention to explode on All Souls Day the Saturday with Sunday the day of rest and not to take place on the Monday which speeds everything up accordingly, The idea is that in trying to recreating what God did, the big bang he hopes to be able to bring his wife and daughter back to life for eternity with him.
When this is foiled they also realise that he has made his way to where they have gathered everyone for protection. I always thought this was a daft idea and indicated the way the story would develop. Salvo has to use all his wits to persuade the man from blowing himself up together with everyone else in the theatre.
One other note is that when the mother of the officers at the station dies after a log illness all the team together with the retired Fazio attend the funeral indicate the development of community between offices which can go so badly wrong or for the good depending on the leadership and integrity at the top.
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