Excursion to Tindari

The reason why it can be said that in July 2013 I became occupied with crime and cricket is because of the decision to commence reading through Inspector Salvo Montalbano novels of Andrea Camilleri in chronological sequence, todate The Shape in the Water, the Terracotta Dog, the Voice of the Violin and now, perhaps the best, at least so far, in terms of storyline cleverness and integration, Excursion to Tindari, having previously read The Snack Thief, out of sequence, because it was the first of his books shown as a television programme, in Italy and then more recently on Channel Four on Saturday nights. I should also qualify the reading list by add, those books that have already been translated into English from Italian.

 

 

 

The translations by Stephen Sartarelli who understands English idioms, capturing the flow of the Italian as well as the differences between Italian and Sicilian in the same way of the fake policeman in Allo Allo. In this book the murders of an elderly couple and young man spending more money than any likely honest job appears justified and an extraordinary request from one of the aging heads of a major Mafia family are all connected in a manner which does not leave continuing questions or stretches credulity.

 

 

 

The murder of the young man outside the block flats where he lives is discovered first. It is not clear how the young man is able to afford his evident lifestyle from his part job involving computers, especially as neighbours confirm his practice of bringing attractive young women to his flat and then hearing the cries of the love making which sometimes continues throughout the night. They then discover a number of recorded and commercial video tapes with some home made tapes showing the experiences of the night. Later Salvo realises that the victim also used the commercial tapes and in one instance and important recording inserted into a commercially produce tape of a well known film. The reason why this particular film proves of great interest is that the Inspector has used the comic character of the books, Catarella, whose grasp of Italian creates mayhem, but who passed the new computers training programme top of the class, to go through the hard drive of the murdered young man and print out all the correspondence and what appears at first to be a novel.

 

 

 

The correspondence is of a passionate and extremely intimate nature between the young man and a young woman and from this the Inspectors learns through his deputy Mimi that the young woman has a distinguishing feature, unusual for southern Italian women and I have tried hard to remember how this aspect was covered, or more accurately uncovered in the television version. The discovery causes Salvo to spend a night going through the various tapes until he finds the young woman with the described feature and this causes the flat of the murdered man to be broken into by two of his closest and armed colleagues called to the scene because neighbours have panicked as it appears the ghost of the young man has returned with yet another young woman. Because as usual Salvo had embarked on the study without informing colleagues what he was doing, they immediately assume he is using the flat for an illicit assignation until he explains what he has actually been up to.

 

 

 

He resorted to the idea because the alternative was for him to ask his friend and socialite Ingrid if she had encountered another young woman with the same physical characteristic and while the worldly Ingrid would not have battered one of her adorable eyelids, Salvo’s southern perspective on womanhood would make him blush although in fairness the latest episode of Scandinavian Wallander, Firewall, shown this Saturday past has him also blushing at the suggestion that his relationship with the nurse he believes appointed to deal with his diagnosed condition has developed into a more intimate one.

 

 

 

He does ask Ingrid to view the tape and she immediately confirms the young woman to be the wife of an internationally known transplant surgeon with a clinic on the island. The reason why Mimi suggested that Salvo’s friend might know the young woman is because the correspondence revealed that the woman was not a native Italian and Ingrid from Sweden was known to have moved in a social circle which was likely to include others of a certain lifestyle of standing on the island. While the other films of the man’s sexual experiences concentrated on performance, the correspondence and indeed the film while intimate and direct was not pornographic or obscene, but revealed a love passion and a sensitive adoration for the body of the young woman.

 

 

 

However this was not to be a simple case of a jealous older husband arranging for the murder of the young man and his faithless young wife, for she unexpectedly returned to her homeland and family of a central European country. Ingrid provides a telephone number and the conversation helps Montalbano work or the connections between the murder and the disappearance of an elderly couple on an all day excursion to Tindari where there is a statue of a black Madonna.

 

 

 

The son of the couple, a lawyer, presses Salvo to investigate the disappearance of his parents who through a process of elimination he is able to conclude did into return home from the trip. He “invites” everyone on the coach to go to the police station which causes some mayhem and provides a good insight into the behaviour of Italian seniors inclined to go on such outings. He discovers that the couple went to the back to the coach and stayed there, ignoring the rest. It then emerges that they spent some time looking out of the rear window. The coach stop in the morning and on return for arranged food and comfort breaks but they were asked by the husband of the disappeared couple to make an additional stop and later to establish that the couple did not board the coach when it continues although this was not noted at the time as it was dark and everyone was tired and anxious to return to their homes.

 

 

 

Two of those on the coach are important in establishing these facts, especially that a car was following the coach to and back from Tindari. A young university student was helping to pay her way through college by going on the trips and attempting to sell to the travellers household utensils which she kept in boxes at the rear of the coach and which usually meant the rear seats were not occupied. This meant she had taken particular notice of the couple. Salvo arranges to meet her at a restaurant and Mimi arrives before they leave, despite the rival between the two and Mimi’s resentment of the way his boss treats him, Salvo is horrified when he learns that Mimi has established a relationship with another senior police officer from a distant district and has become engaged with the intention of joining his partner after putting in a transfer request, Noting Mimi’s instant interest in the young demonstrator he asks the young woman to tell Mimi all that she has told him so he can make a report. His move is effective as Mimi begins a serious relationship with the young woman and loses interest in the proposed transfer and marriage to another police officer.

 

 

 

However it is the coach driver whose interview was initially unhelpful who provides a major clue which connects the couple to the death of the young man after Montalbano finds out that the elderly couple lived in the same block. The coach drives makes an make additional income by arranging for photographs of those on the coach to be taken restricting to taking photos when off the couch. By enlarging one of the photos they are able to identify that the car following the couple is that of the young man. The bodies of the elderly couple are then found, Salvo is upset that he did not give the report of the disappearance as much attention as he now feels he should and his interests is furthered when he discovers that the post office pass book which the couple used for their monthly retirement cheques has also disappeared, He is then able to persuades the manager of the local post office centre to disclose the latest transactions as this led to finding an accumulation of nearly 100 million lire, not as exciting an amount as might be first suggested about £31000 but significant more than the couples pension income and expenditure balance and created by the inclusion of a regular sum of around £1000 a month over the previous two years.

 

 

 

The search for how the money was accrued leads to a sister with whom the couple had little contact over member years because the woman’s parents had left her a small estate, a couple of flats and a tiny property on the coast in the middle of nowhere. The murdered couple had visited the sister in law at her request shortly before her expected death. She was leaving the main flat to her housekeeper together with the income of the rented out second flat but the small isolated property she was passing on to her sister although in terms of sale value it was almost worthless because building had no electricity or toilet, It was explained that the reason why one sister had inherited because had stayed home while the other sister and brother had left early to make separate lives.

 

 

 

Salvo then investigates on his own and then purchases breaking in equipment and then injures himself getting into the property which he finds cleared although noting the recent addition of electricity and phone line and a number of connection points. It then is revealed that the young man from the same building had rented the property from the couple on the understanding that they never visited. The breakthrough comes when the husband of the young woman with whom the young man was having an affair catches them together when he returns unexpectedly one afternoon. The reaction of the husband, confirmed by the wife helps Salvo to make the right connections, It is evident to the woman that the husband and the young man knew each other and that from that moment the husband became extremely afraid and insisted that his wife return to her homeland for her own good. He had also closed down his transplant clinic on the island and appeared to be living in fear when interviewed. The explanation lies with the telephone call Montalbano had previously received from the lawyer known to be acting for one two major Mafia families on the Island, a man who had served a long prison sentence for murder, but who was known to have committed a score of other murders where proof had not been possible for one good reason and not so good another.

 

 

 

Salvo is anxious about making the visit to the castle like estate of the family located on a hillside with spectacular views of the surrounding coast and with look outs at various positions. The lawyer meets Salvo at the entrance tot he main property and introduces him to the Mafia head who has his priest confessor with him and who departs with the lawyer after being introduced to Salvo. The man talks in riddles about his frailty and brings man of honour very different from the young criminals of to day and also makes reference to his grandson who has been on the run for many years and is apart of this new order. There is a second meeting after Salvo has to explain to the commissioner why his car number plate was noted by the anti Mafia squad staking out the lair. Salvo convinces the chief to say that they must have recorded the number falsely because the Inspector with him, or in telephonic conversation from the station at the time, giving Salvo the opportunity to proceed with what appears to be an attempt to similar tot hat in the Terracota Dog to stage a police operation by capturing the man on the run who will get help for his medical condition in prison and avoid being terminated by one of the new order of Mafia without honour, a contradiction in terms.

 

 

 

He appoints one fo his trusted assistant to follow the priest with the consequence that the police are led to the location of the wanted man but when they raid the hideout they find villain with his throat cut and his bodyguard disappeared, Salvo has already worked out that the Mafia head had arranged or ordered the killing and for the police to be present and take the blame thus eliminating any connection with the Mafia chief. Salvo refuses to participate n this charade and advises the Mafia family head to arranged for the dead body to disappear without identification.

 

 

 

In the final exchange between the two men, in which admiration is expressed for the way Montalbano had understood the attempted ploy, he learns that the Mafia head is in need of a Kidney transplant, one of hundreds if not thousands who needs such operations but where there are insufficient donors. The information leads Salvo to read the novel which was printed out from the computer of the murdered young man and this is similar to the use of commercial tapes to hide film he wanted to keep and have access without easy detection. The novel is in effect the start of a well known published work but then develops in a story of his experience over the past two years.

 

 

 

The organ transplant doctor achieved international fame which meant that political figures, business leaders and others of great wealth and influence came to him to for help. Acquired a young wife but over time they fell out of love going their own ways for the greater part of the time. He took up the collection of art works and to gambling and these became a weakness which led him to become vulnerable when an organ was required by a leading Mafia figure. The doctor was promised a supply of the required organs almost on demand to match the needs of a patient. The murdered young man had managed the communications link necessary between the need for organs and the requirements of donors in such a way that that the patients and the medial staff had no knowledge of the “donors“ and delivery organisation and vie versa. There was one significant flaw in the system. Those who donated organs did not always fo so voluntarily and some were alive when the organ was removed, then killed and their remains disposed. It was a cruel twist of fate that had brought the young man into direct contact with the doctor via the Doctor’s wife and steps taken to eliminates all evidence of the relationship with first the Doctors wife leaving the country and the doctor closing the clinic and going into effective hiding. The young man had been the instrument of bringing the elderly couple to the meeting place where they were killed and then the young man himself was killed and his body dumped outside his home in an attempt for the two murders not to be linked and was the removal of post office pass book to prevent the extra money being found and the location of the former communication’s base.

 

 

 

In the final scene Montalbano poses and someone coming to kill the doctor with Mimi and another colleague arriving just in time to drive him off so the doctor is only too willing to seek the protection of the police by offering to admit to his part and his knowledge of the organisation behind the gruesome operation.

 

 

 

The relationship between Mimi and the student demonstrator begins to thrive while Salvo starts the process of resuming a goof relationship with Livia and the disappointment of not adopting although in reality he is too preoccupied with work to make a good parent or husband. He admits that part of their problem was that they were behaving as a married couple and he proposes they going back to beginning and court each other, thinking that a dew days spent at Tindari might do them good. However this positive conclusion cannot disguise the revulsion which Salvo and his colleagues feel on learning the way that poor people are being exploited, mutilated and murdered to satisfy he needs of the rich and powerful to sustain their lives regardless of the consequences for everyone else.

 

 

 

While I will leave a full review of Firewall the latest Wallander book brought to television in a two part drama there are two aspects which I must mention. The first with an attempt to control the computers of banks and finance houses through the world. is the emphasis in the book on new technology, thus underlining the impact of computers on the crime genre, The other aspect is related to the inability of the most dedicated and effective of fictional detectives to command on going relationships and lead a family life. In the next book his commitment to work is stretched to breaking point by the behaviour of some colleagues and his self confidence is also shattered by uncovering yet more examples of human exploitation and depravity which lead to decide to resign.

Montalbanp discovers the importance of a Violin in solving the death of a beautiful young woman.

I enjoyed the fourth book in the Montalbano series The Voice of the Violin, even if the reason for the title does not become apparent until towards the very end. I appreciated the character development and the continuity of some storyline relationships. Having read the first book before appreciating that the TV series had placed the book first out of sequence( The Snack Thief) I was impressed at the way the writer deals with the position of Salvo Montalbano and Livia and their decision to marry and provide a home for the now orphan boy of The Snack Thief - Françoise. During the story Salvo is asked by his deputy Mimi to visit his sister Franca where she is looking after the child with her own two boys at the family farm while the adoption process is progressed and Salvo and Livia prepare for a fundamental change in their daily lifestyles.

Given what was learned about the couple from the first book read and now the previous first two are written I suspect most readers would have guessed that marriage and becoming a day in and day out family man was not something that Salvo was cut out for and that Livia was not cut out for an continuous 24/7 relationship with a self possessed confident to point of egocentricity police Inspector. In fact it takes mature and well adjusted intelligent adults to be able to enjoy and sustain a relationship where both partners have full life occupational activities from which they get their identity and satisfaction and which involves long hours, often travel during which they are separated and are able to develop relationships with others. Having watched the Swedish Television interpretation of Wallander (Henning Mankell’s The Fifth Woman over two weeks recently and presently, The Man who smiled) I have noted many similarities between the two characters and the reasons why I identify with both of them so strongly).

In fairness to Salvo while work and thinking about work takes precedence over most other things in his life the exception is food which he insists in enjoying in silence saving each morsel which is also something of a turn off for most females! I am not saying he does not enjoy sex but I suspect he rarely loses himself completely in the way many if not most people are able to do. My main surprise is that Livia has become so attached to him. I suspect her own work has taken precedence over motherhood and that while she dislikes the fact that Montalbano is often not “with her” during her weekends in Vigáta she is just as content with their weekends and occasional holidays together when he is not fully involved in solving one or more cases.

I also need to be fair that however much he understand the situation Salvo is disappointed that the child has come to appreciate the security offered by Franca and her husband and in particular that he is sharing in the family life as a brother of the two sons who have also welcomed his arrival into the family. It is Françoise who has taken the initiative in demanding to stay however much he appreciates the visits of Salvo and Livia who rescued him during his darkest hour. While Salvo understands the boy’s position and the willingness of Franca and her husband to accept him as a full member of their family he realises this will be a devastating blow for Livia, although even he is surprised at how badly she takes the news arguing that the couple are only after someone to help work the farm and his inheritance. She needs. as she does, to make a surprise visit to the farm on her own but the shock of her rejection, as it seems to her, is the greater as a consequence. Angry with Salvo who she blames for the situation, part fo her difficult to express at times more general anger at him for attaching so much importance to his work, she leaves the island with only brief contact with the man. While the relationship continues and appears to flourish at times, some readers like me will sense that a point of no return will has been reached and question if the relationship will survive and if it does for how long.

It is also a personal event which leads Salvo into the case which is the main subject of this book. The wife of a fellow Inspector in another district is reported dead after being gravely ill for sometime and he arranges to be driven to the funeral., On their way they hit a parked car because trying to avoid a chicken which runs into the road (Returning from a coach trip to watch Durham at Old Trafford Lancashire yesterday 14^th July 2013 I encountered two baby Seagulls determined to control the entrance to the back lane with a sit down and even getting out of the car to shoo them away failed. Because of the incident and going to the wrong church they fail to make the funeral and on return finding the vehicle with their note still parked they fail to get a response from the large property where it was parked outside the main gates,

Montalbano arranges for someone to try and find out about the ownership of the House and vehicle. The property was owned by a local doctor, now deceased and inherited by his son, also a doctor, who works in Bologna who married a woman who fell in love with the property when they visited on honeymoon and decided she wanted to establish a home there, staying in the area often (at a hotel as yet undiscovered) making local friends with whom she frequently socialised and it is assumed where she was now staying and had not yet returned to the home as a consequence.

Salvo then did something for which readers familiar with his approach to policing know him only too well. Late at night he enters the property and to his horror he finds a beautiful young woman face down naked on a bed and dead.

In the previous book he had become friends with an aged disabled former school teacher whose helper disliked him but because she cooked good meals Salvo accepted the invitation to dine once a week plus sometimes attending the weekly concert lasting one hour of a famous violinist who now lived in seclusion of the floor above and because of a kindness played the concerts so the former teacher could enjoy his music from her floor and at the end of the concert she would telephone and give applause. Salvo called on the woman on the morning of a concert, almost ended, and where the woman was supplied with as handwritten note of the pieces being played. Salvo who knew little about music could at least tell it was a first class performance and joined in the applause.

The purpose of his visit was however to use the friendship to try and get him out of the problem of having unintentionally contaminated a crime scene. The woman was to the ring the police commissioner and advise that a crime had been committed at the house, mentioning that a bottle green Twingo car was outside. My God Salvo said when someone rang on behalf of the Police Commissioner and after noting the details he said he would explain the amazing coincidence!

The next story development was when Salvo is advised that the murdered woman’s husband is a doctor working in Bologna and that that his reaction, saying he was too busy at the hospital to immediate come to Sicily was odd and prompted the reader to regard the man as the immediate prime suspect. There was an explanation for his behaviour.

First the husband provided Salvo with the name of a distant relative who lived in the province and who he knew had been in contact. This information was to have significant bearing on what happened in the story. The relative had a son, described once kindly as a simple soul or as we would official say to day with learning difficulties, a problem which I remain personally familiar. It is established that the young man age thirty one and at university trying to take a first degree became besotted with the woman, following her about and when he disappears, going on the run it seemed, coinciding with the woman’s death he becomes the prime suspect by those who take over the investigation after Montalbano and his team are removed from the case when it is established that he had entered the property illegally and discovered the body providing evidence through the crime scene management and new forensic techniques which had been introduced. The young man is then killed by the police saying he was armed when they approached the entrance to the cave where he was hiding and they then arrested the father for complicity.

It take great efforts by Salvo with help from his team to establish that the young man had witnessed the murder from a tree out the bedroom. He had fallen and injured his foot which meant he found it difficult to wear his shoe and he had been holding the shoe when exited from the cave at the behest of the police. In order to save face the head of the flying squad involved had helped manufacture the evidence producing a World War 2 grenade which it was claimed he boy was holding and planting a box with another grenade, a revolver and ammunition at the home of the parent. The man is released from custody to grieve for the death of his innocent only child. Montalbano is reinstated to lead the reopened case with the police man responsible for the cover up retired.

Salvo meets Anna Tropeano an unmarried teacher who had become friends with the dead woman and with who Salvo finds attractive as well as intelligent and defensive about her friend. Salvo is able to get her initially to admit that the dead woman had a lover and subsequently that he is an antique dealer although she did not have his name and address. They became friends and as with his friend Montalbano liked to share information about the case he was working on. In this respect he is indiscreet and unprofessional and uses the media when it suits his purposes in order to achieve justice, condemning those who use the media to promote their personal positions.

Montalbano then meets the husband of the murdered woman who explains that he met her when treating her brother for an injury and who had then moved to live and work in New York. The young woman had been raped by an uncle when she was 15 years who brought her up with her brother after their parents had died. She been the mistress of an industrialist who had provided for her financially but she resented being a kept woman. The Doctor then explained that at the age of 50 he become irreversibly impotent and the marriage had been agreed as a way of preventing allegations being made against him that he was a homosexual, while she would have the security and the freedom to live the life she wanted. They had become close friends having no secrets and he had willingly provided the funds for her to create the home in Sicily. This was to be her life away from Bologna and he had not known the name of her hotel where she stayed while the construction work was undertaken.

The next development is the owner of a garage who remembered seeing the dead woman when she called at his garage on the night of the murder and the man she was with was not that of police killed student shown on TV.

The case break through comes however when the woman living below the recluse professional violinist contacts to say that the dead woman had called at home of her neighbour. The woman had discovered a violin at the property of her husband and knowing of the violinist having heard him performed had been able to get him to at the instrument which he suspect was rare and valuable. He had confirmed this and advised to let him keep the violin safe ( and play) rather than at the unoccupied property until she had arranged its sale to pay off the debt of lover who had become meshed with criminals and loan sharks through his gambling. The Maestro had given her an inexpensive but quality violin to keep in the case at the home fearing the original would be at risk. When Montalbano returned to the house he finds the violin case and the Maestro confirms that the violin inside is mass produced and worthless. The Maestro reveals why he had become a recluse which Salvo fully understands.

Salvo is then able to work out and prove that the lover had returned secretly to Sicily using a false name together with a criminal contact, The man had killed the woman face down because he could not bear her to see him after they had sex. His action had been seen by the student. The criminal contact had collected him and the violin and returned to Bologna to dispose to a private purchaser thus getting twice as much as would have been sold on the open market. The murderer shoots himself when confronted by Salvo.

I had the impression of less reference to food until checking and discovered a dish of fresh anchovies which he dresses in lemon juice, olive oil and freshly ground black pepper. He offers to share a large serving of haddock baked with a sauce of anchovies and vinegar to add to it. He enjoys baby Octopus alla Luciana- fresh tomato sauce with added hot pepper and garlic.

There is a gentle dish to tinnirume which is steamed flower tops of courgettes. Caponata which he has a generous helping is a dish made with sautéed aubergines, tomato, green pepper, garlic, onion celery, black olives, olive oil, anchovies and vinegar and served as an appetizer !!! A neopolitana coffee is made by turn a tin of coffee upside down at the point of boiling allowing the hot water to filter down through the coffee grounds by force of gravity.

I could not understand when he had taken a large cassata on the long journey to visit Franca and the boy he an Livia had intended adopting. This version is in fact a traditional Sicilian sponge cake filled with sweetened ricotta(cheese) candid fruit, raisins, pine nuts, pistachios and jam, usually apricot.

The violin was estimated to have a value of between two and three billion lire which is said to be up to £1 million.

The Terracotta Dog on TV and the book

One of the great joys of the past couple pf years has been the showing of the Montalbano series of dramatizations of the books of Andrea Camilleri which I am now reading in sequence having mistakenly commenced with the first of the TV series but third in sequence, The Snack Thief, then going back to the first - The Shape in the Water and now having completed he reading of the second The Terracotta Dog, having also commenced to read the fourth The Voice of the Violin.

I enjoyed the reading story of the Terracota Dog which I remembered from the TV show because it is the work which introduces us two key characters, his rival and deputy Mimi Augello and his front of desk man, unintentional comedian because of the mixing up of Italian and Sicilian in a way which reminds of the fake policeman, British spy in ‘Alo ‘Alo getting his English into French pronunciation badly wrong. The book also reinforces Salvo’s adoration of food, especially of sea food and of pasta dishes with unexpected ingredients tot he sauces.

First the main story or at least what arises because of the main the story. A Mafia underboss who has been on the run for over two decades contacts the Detective Inspector through his childhood friend Gege who runs prostitutes and small times drugs on an isolated stretch of beach on the outside of the town of fictitious town of Vigáta. It is important to view Sicily as a separate country in terms of being a 10000 square mile island with a population of 5 million and where the Mafia still controls some areas which in turn as a depressing effect on the economy and tourism and which is covered in the separate dramatization of Corleone, based on the life of Salvatore Riina who for a period controlled the Mafia throughout Sicily which I shall also cover later in this writing.

In the Terracotta Dog the former Mafia underboss decides to spend the rest of his life in prison rather than be terminated by the present generation of gangsters who are not men of honour. However in order to achieve his objective he needs to be captured and this involves an elaborate scheme in which the Inspector excludes his deputy and anyone prone to seek the limelight via the media. This annoys his deputy who seriously considers putting in a bid for a transfer.

Salvo admits that he likes not only to control situations but often take time to think out what is happening and he does this best on his own as well as breaking rules by cutting corners and over stepping the mark, at times by wide margins. In this instance man is captured and placed in the hands of the special anti Mafia squad. However Salvo to his horror is required to speak at a press conference, something he usually avoids and in this situation made more difficult because he has to mislead over what really happened.

Unfortunately what happened is that the Mafia contemporaries do not buy the capture story and because of their inside connections with politicians and the Justice system they are able to badly wound the prisoner when in transit is arranged between prisons. The man requests Montalbano visits and with the dying breadth reveals the location of a cave used by the contemporary gangsters to keep their stock of weapons.

　

The cave was originally created to hide material from the German’s during World War 2 and has an ingenious entrance involving a large rock reminding of the Secret of the Santa Vittoria. Inside the cave there is flooring, walls and roofing to protect from the damp. There is something not right about the cave which the Inspector spots and again works out and finds an inner cave where there are two bodies, later confirmed as young people of both sexes, arms entwined and shot. There is no remains pf clothing suggesting they were killed elsewhere but a life size dog made from terracotta, a dish with coins which help dates the burial and a jug. The greater part of the books is concerned in unravelling the mystery of who the young people are, why they died and came to be entombed in this manner.

He is able to follow what today we would call a cold case because he has a near death experience when those who assassinated the former underboss attempts to kill him and successfully kill his childhood friend Gege. He visits the mother and sister of the dead man to express his sorrow at the loss of his friend and who also provided him with good intelligence over many years.

While recuperating and resisting efforts of his superiors to promote him Montalbano slowly unravels the mystery. First with the help of the wife of man consulted he learns who the girl was said at the time to have run off with a soldier to the USA but this is proved to be a fiction. The girl’s boyfriend was a Muslim who worked from a ship based in the local docks repairing other ships. Montalbano also finds that two historical stories, one Muslim and one Christian were fused to create the scene found in the second cave and where the key aspect is a reawakening.

It also begins to look as if the truth will never be established until he has one of his brainwaves and with the help of the Swedish wife mentioned in The Shape in the Water he used some promised bonus money to hire a plane to make a statement about the young lovers at an event attended by a lot of people and the media and which then gets reported throughout Italy. This he hopes will bring the individual he suspects of having carried out the murder back to Sicily, in part because money allocated to compulsory purchase his land because of a new motorway tunnel lies in a bank waiting to be claimed or until it is established there is no one entitled.

The story the man tells is not what Montalbano expects. The young girl had met the boyfriend in secret because her father was not just possessive but coveted and eventually raped her. I cannot remember if it was girl or the boyfriend who had shot and wounded the father but it was one of the henchmen who carried out the murder of the couple while they were making love. I also cannot remember who the relative had also killed and led him to become an exile for the subsequent years living under a different life with a family. Montalbano in a fashion we are to learn he uses regularly decides to let sleeping dogs lie!!!!

As is the case with most of the books there are two main stories and sometimes there are unrelated. In this instance Mimi, his deputy investigates an unusual theft at a local supermarket because a vehicle with all the stolen goods is then found. Interrogation of the Supermarket manager also raises suspicions especially when a passing witness is also murdered to look like an accident but has taken the precaution of writing down his concerns and passing these in mailed letter to the Inspector. It is subsequently shown that the owner of the company supply the supermarket, a front for the Mafia was responsible for the attack on Montalbano and the killing of his friend but all in vain because the Mafia associates had also arranged for the termination of the colleague attracting too much interest by the authorities in their activities. Why the supermarket was robbed as part of the delivery of the weapons is also explained but do we remember or care?

A feature of the book is the attention given by the author to the food of Sicily and the attention given by the Inspector to his food which he likes to enjoy in silence even when he has company. Consideration of the present day meals cooked in Sicily suggests that Montalbano while appearing to be fixed on fish and pasta combinations chooses food from the all aspect of Sicilian culinary life with along the Catania coast with its Greek influence emphasis on fish ( sea bream and bass, tuna, cuttlefish and swordfish), olives and fresh vegetables such as egg plants, peppers and tomatoes while Arabia provides the use of lemons and other citrus fruits. A more detailed re-examination of The Terracotta Dog especially the notes at the back explains that calia e simenza is a mix of roasted chic peas and pumpkin seeds sometimes with peanuts added, an Arabic influenced dish; the Pasta ‘nastciata is a casserole of elbow(?) macaroni, penne, ziti, tomato sauce and mince beef with Parmesan cheese and béchamel blended. Mensa is a calf’s spleen, sliced into thin strips land cooked in fat while fresh anchovies all agretto means cooked in a sauce made with lemon juice. Pasta al forno in a casserole which can be made with meat, eggs, tomato or cream sauces; and pasta con sarde is broad spaghetti like rings with a sauce of fresh sardines and the tops of wild fennel, pine nuts, raisins, garlic and saffron while the second dish on the menu purpi ala carrettera is octopus served in a sauce of olive oil lemon and a great deal of hot pepper. There is also reference to tabesea pizza (?) and to mostacciola( small sweet cakes of chocolate, almonds and candid fruits) where I can read my handwriting while others notes remain indecipherable written in bed the early of the night or dawn! Not sure I would like to try some of the dishes. More a salami with French bread and olives man, me.

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.