The Scent of the Night

The eighth book I have read in reverse order is the Scent of the Night which is primarily a story about a financial swindle plus unrequited love.

There is a sub plot which for once is unconnected with the main story. The Commissioner discovers that the murdered mother of Françoise, the child he and Livia were to adopt but since this had taken place with the sister of Mimi and her husband and two sons, had a substantial amount of money in account where the pass book had been taken by Salvo. Now we as readers of the book in question Salvo not wanting the state to take hold of the money had asked a local Magistrate notary to take the account and invest on behalf of he boy until he was of an age to benefit. Fortunately he had received a receipt and the child been formally adopted. However in the natural course of his life he had forgotten about this and disclosed to anyone including his long distance partner Livia, his deputy Mini or he sister and her family. Being Salvo he was understandably aghast at the accusation knowing that the Commissioner was not his friend. Rather than explain the position given the attitude of the Commissioner he visits the notary who has retired and is momentarily anxious in case the money was invested in the King Midas Fund but all is well and the funds are secure and he finds the receipt which he sends without explanation to the Commissioner. With lots of goodies he goes to see the sister and explains the position which she takes in her stride. The boy now has his own horse and tells Salvo that his ambition is to become a policeman when he grows up. He also find out that Livia has been to see the boy secretly and this does not help the difficulties the couple are experiencing.

The main story begins when an angry investor tries to hold up the King Midas Associates office of the head the one man investment company who had disappeared. The swindle is a familiar one. Investors are offered an exceptional rate of interest of 20%. This is paid to the first investors which is in effect one fifth of the amount invested at that point. The consequence is that all their friends relatives and friends what to join in and offer more money as well as some of the original investors. The swindler then arranges to disappear with all these funds which he has invested in various off shore accounts. The Inspector investigates the two assistants and the secretary receptionist office keeper. According to the office assistant the young man who dealt with the computerisation of accounts had gone to Germany and would be back within a month. The team discover that in fact he had not gone to Germany but had bought a ticket to another destination which he had also not used thus attempting to provide a false trail.

They discover that this young man was having a house built on isolated land which contained the olive tree that Montalbano would visit and talk to seek answers when he was stuck on a case. When he discovers that the tree has been torn down to build the property he breaks windows and splashes graffiti and action which is discovered by an assistant who nevertheless covers up when the father of the man makes a formal complaint about the vandalism attack. Payments for the house appear to have been made direct to the young man from account of his employer but were not part of the swindled funds.

The other assistant is an attractive young woman Michela Manganaro living with her parents in a ten story block of public housing and in bed when Salvo calls and finds that she is strapping, tall and beautiful with a brief miniskirt and a blouse barely containing her other attributes. It emerged she had already been seen by his deputy and he quickly assumed seen in every despite the engagement to Beatrice and the forthcoming wedding. She regarded Mimi with hostility, hence also the Inspector because his deputy had not disclosed the engagement and marriage until after their encounter. They go on a car ride so she can talk freely and during their conversation the Inspector asks if she had slept with her boss. She laughs and discloses that he is gay and that he was having a relationship with the other assistant, the man who said he was going to Germany but who whereabouts also remained unknown. She had that from the public appearance he was courting her and his secretary Maristella who he showered with chocolates and flowers and who adored him.

The search for the assistant continued until evidence of buying but not using a ticket to Lisbon leads them back to the half built villa where they find two packed suitcases but they do not find a brief case which they find contained diskettes and computer account codes.

It is then he decides to approach a retired university teacher who has caused previous amusement mixed with irritation from reporting saving seen tings like flying saucers and aliens. The married man appears sane and sensibility but admit he does end to see things are not there but figments of his imagination but in this instance he is adamant about seeing a car and a motorbike in an area on a cliff top known to be used by lovers while taking of his usual late night walkabouts. It appears to be the car used by the missing King Midas swindler. The inspector visits the place, looks over onto the rocks below and then arranges one of his diving expeditions. He arranges for the vehicle to be raised with inside the body of the shot assistant.

Salvo began to work out the mystery and that the assistant had in turn worked out not only what King Midas was doing but how and used this knowledge to blackmail his boss and lover into ensuring their relationship was to be long term. Despite being in love with the assistant the boss knew his own future was in question wile the young man lived and had killed him. This knocked on the head the belief that the two men had been killed by the Mafia upset to find that their money laundering investments were part of the swindle. But where is he?

It then that the maestro works out that the secretary is more involved that she has let on as she did not appear surprised when the Inspector had reported various developments and concerns. She was convinced King Midas would return as would the male assistant. He learns from the friend (Voice of the Violin previously) who is a distant relative of the secretary that she lives alone in a great house inherited from her parents and that she had been very attached to her father to an extent she had not reported his death for several days as if unaware he had died. After he witnesses he involvement as a pedestrian in car accident he helps her home after she refused to go to the hospital. He persuades her to show him the home and finds King Mafia dead, shot with the briefcase nearby in a bedroom with the woman genuinely unaware he is there, repressing what she has done. After shooting his lover he turned to her for help and she had killed him, perhaps to save him from what lay ahead when he was caught. They may never come to really known her motive at the time. He arranges for the doctor to send her into a long sleep so he can have forensics in the house and remove the body the following morning. The case is solves and the briefcase will enable the authorities to find the missing money.

Having commenced with food and end with first Salvo wolfing two servings of grilled fish as first and second courses and then having an explored her finds a rural restaurant no more than eight tables in the middle of nowhere. He is given a jug of dense red wine while the food is prepared. He is offered burning piraciati something the Inspector accepts even thought he warned, “if you are up to it. His mouth burns and he chokes when it arrives and then enquires what is in it! Olive oil, half an onion two cloves of garlic, two salted anchovies, a teaspoon of fine capers, black olives, tomatoes, basil, half a pimento, salt, pecorino cheese and black pepper. Extreme cooking proving pleasure and agony intermingled. He was unable to eat a second course as it took a day for the taste buds to return! He also enjoys nannatu, flat crispy dumplings studied with fish eyes from the tiny baby fish not thrown back to the sea and cooked with lemon. To punish himself for eating a technically illegal dish he does not ear another course. Returning from an unsatisfactory day’s work and an unholy exchange with Livia as he forgets she is coming over fort he wedding and has purchased the present he has forgotten he finds a dish of patati cunsati- a potato based dish with onions, capers, olives, salt and pepper and this is the overture to the arrival of Mimi having second thoughts about the wedding and in need of several tots of whisky. During the visit to see Mimi’s sister he had eaten pasta al ragu and pork and on return he cooked himself and egg with four fresh sardines tossed in olive oil, vinegar and oregano. Feeling hungry the following day he goes to the restaurant for the pasta in squid ink and a dozen baby octopus dumplings.

And Mimi ? Well the wedding is delayed a month because of a family illness but it does take place with him as witness accompanied by Livia. And as for the book it does not satisfy as much as several of the others and I wish I had read them

Rounding the Mark

Rounding the Mark is the sixth Andrea Camilleri book in the Montalbano police detective series that I have enjoyed reading over the first weeks of August 2013. I should have read the Scent of the Night, the next book in sequence but in fact Round the Mark has a great connection with Excursion to Tindari the previous book reviewed which covered the exploiting, maiming and murder of poor people, frequently migrants, for their organs by a Mafia funded and organised operation!!!!

In this book Montalbano, given his age and foodie lifetsyle, takes one of his long and potentially dangerous swims given his proneness to cramp and encounters a badly decomposed body which he manages to get ashore by using his swimming trunks much to the horror of a visiting couple whose husband keep Montalbano at bay until his colleague police officers and a TV camera arrive to give the scene a national significance.

Who is this man and how he got to where he is found is the first question followed by did Inspector Salvo Montalbano do the right thing in reuniting an illegal migrant runaway with his mother? Readers of this brilliant series will also ask what is the connection between the two events?

The book begins with Montalbano trying to work off one of his evening meal extravaganzas` where he has a tendency to consume several portions of some delicacy, presumably without side dishes, at times wolfing if he does not concentrate, hence the need to eat in silence even when he has excellent company. In this instance he mentions baby octopus a strascinasali, baby fish boiled in salted water and then dressed in olive oil and lemon juice which I have in stock but the baby octopus does not appeal while and sardines beccaficio- headless cleaned sardines stuffed with sautéed bread crumbs, pine nuts and anchovies all I have except the pine nuts but which I will try.

During the book the owner of the Trattoria where Salvo has many meals announces he is to retire and this cause the Inspector great anxiety and various trips in search of a replacement home from home. His daily help creates one meal a day and the Inspector is not content with making do with cheese, olives, salted sardines and salami as a second meal of the day. After experimenting in half a dozen places the one found which is passable involves a car journey which being such a busy man created problems. He therefore takes up a suggestion of a Trattoria recommended by a friend of his deputy Mimi. The owner chef Enzo and been waiting for him to arrive having heard thought the grapevine the Calvary, the Inspector faced.

He has an antipasto of salted octopus followed by the pasta with a sauce off squid ink(There are 12 results for this on Amazon). He then has a fish grill which included mullet, sea bass and gilthead reminding of what if the great meals experience when visiting in Northern France one year commencing with a whole dressed crab on shell and claws to crack with a bottle of white Sancerre, followed by a red mullet with more wine and the crème caramel before coffee. I still have the receipt somewhere.

As the pressure of the case built up Salvo rejects beef roulades left for him by the daily help and goes to the Trattoria Enzo for more spaghetti in squid ink followed by crispy fried calamaretti. As his mood improves he enjoys a pasta ncasiata from the oven. Having persuaded his married Swedish friend Ingrid to assist in his inquiry she takes him out for meal comprising a dish of ditalini in a sauce of fresh and properly salted ricotta with pecorino and black pepper on top. The second course was costi imbriachi, drunken pork ribs drowning in wine and tomato concentrates. He is supposed to pay but forgets his wallet.

All this food makes my hungry for good cooking but I am unlikely to try making most of the top ten public voted Italian dishes which were broadcast on More Four on Saturday August 10^th 2013 and which would have sent Salvo into raptures of ecstasy with the insistence on freshly made with the best ingredients, except there was little mention of the fish other than part of a pasta dish with, clams. The most favoured was the Pizza, not surprising and the gelato form of ice cream. I was most interested by the making of lasagne and an aubergine dish, and noted the meat balls with polenta, the wild mushroom risotto, the brochette options and the tiramisu plus finding out for the first time was is gnocchi placing the recipes in my More Four scrap book just in case. I also discovered that I have a recipe book at home on the pasta which was given when I purchased a Fiat motor car one time. All making me very hungry again at writing so I had two ready made omelettes with cheese (£1) from frozen with my coffee followed by a glass of lemonade for breakfast and a few dried figs to get me going for the rest of the writing. For lunch there is a pork chop, jacket potato and corn on the cob while later afternoon there was smoked mackerel, a cheese toastie and red grapes all with lashings of lemonade.

Back to the book the problem Detective and the faces is that while body had been dead and presumably in the sea of a month at the time it was found it could only have been in the particular current for short time and from along a short distance fo coast otherwise the current would above taken long long distance further. The answer found much later is that the body was trapped in a secret small harbour attached to one of the properties put up without planning permission, part of the new towns of such properties created along this part of the Sicilian coast. The three towns although unauthorized have electricity, running water, sewerage and gas etc and pay taxes to the appropriate municipality. These property eventually get amnesty with the officer adding that there are also several houses built on the beach. This is the significant information which Salvo will eventually follow up,

The next phase of the story begins when Salvo becomes involved in the daily arrival of migrants(tourists) taken from captured or rescued stranded vessels and spots a young body breaking from the crowd who he then finds hiding in the docks and befriends reminding of his experience of the lad in the Snack Thief who he and Livia planned to adopt before the child made it plain he wanted to stay with the sister of Mimi, her husband and their two sons. When the boy is claimed by a female migrant with other children, Salvo reunites but notes the reluctance almost pleading of the boy. The mother has an accident and is taken to the local hospital by an ambulance that is regularly on hand to deal with medical problems arising for the daily arrivals and rescues. However when Montalbano goes to see the boy and his mother at the hospital he finds there is no record and a nurse later contacts to say that on returning to the hospital she had seen a woman mother with boys getting into the car a little way from the hospital and who had not appeared injured in anyway..

The Inspector then learns that the boy is found run down and killed by a car on an isolated roadway leading to or from the new towns, where the witness although from his vantage point did not have a clear view has the impression that the vehicle deliberately changed course to hit the child. Salvo understandably is very upset. This has a traumatic effect who announces to Livia he has arranged to see the Commissioner of Police to give his resignation. Meanwhile he goes over his recollection of what happened at the dockside and this leads him to make inquiries about the Ambulance paramedic.

His assistant Fazio finds out interesting things about the man such as the shop inherited by his wife burned down from arson after failure to pay protection money. However he appears to accept the Mafia involvement, expands and gets into debt with Mafia Loan Sharks. Salvo dresses up like a gangster after having a few business cards printed and engaging the help of Ingrid (the Swedish wife he assisted in a previous case) and goes to the gift shop run by the wife of ambulance paramedic to buy a present for a friend who is getting married. The impact of the visit to cause the paramedic to ask to see Salvo at home rather wait for their morning appointment.

The terrified man confirms that he has been part fo a racket helping to bring in migrant children and escaping from the authoritative by feigning an accident and need for medical help which he is on hand to take to the hospital with the help of the driver who he pays off and then enables the woman and her charges to leave just before the hospital to be picked up by the car. He admits to doing this before involving adults and children. He had given the boy a sedative to quieten him. Salvo is so angered he hits the man and blackmails him into agreeing to go through with the next request that comes, keeping the Inspector informed throughout.

During these events the team tries to find out the identity of the dead man discovered by the Inspector when swimming he is contacted by an investigative journalist who Caterella and his ability to mispronounces everything says is Pontius Pilot. On returning home has found a letter delivered from the Journalist Fonzo Spala who having seen him TV wants to meet and talk to him about his investigation into the involvement of the Mafia and illegal immigrants.

In order to have some break through Salvo gets forensics to create an image for the dead man who is recognised as Ernesto Errera, a fugitive for two years with a long criminal record but this only adds to the mystery because the man in question died previously and was buried. However Salvo remains open minded and when someone like the man in the made up photo is reported to have been seen since the alleged burial in an area of the new towns and from a small group of private and secluded villa on the beach or with sea access, he investigates further. One of the witnesses at a garage recognises not only the man but also boy who was run down. It is evident he had been taken to a property from which he has run away and then run down. The two cases have become linked.

Salvo arranges to hire a dingy to be taken along the coast so he can view the isolated and now vacant holiday villas and discovers one with warning lights for an entrance avoiding the rocks and where there is a metal barrier into a mini harbour immediately below the property. The property was created by an American Italian known for criminality, but has been recently rented out.

Salvo has the tendency to discuss his cases which ever one fo his women folk admirers has his company and after their meal out it is Ingrid who provides the information which reveals that one of her recent lovers is that same man found by the Inspector when swimming. This is a believable coincidence given the nature fo Sicilian society and the range of affairs which Ingrid enjoys.. They had met queuing for petrol. The man was married to a girl from Cosenza who died after two years. The man she knew as Ernesto D’Iunio looked as being Ernesto Errera fugitive.

The relationship had only lasted two months and she had ended because of concerns about the man. He had cancelled arrangements to meet three times arranging to see her the following night although on the third occasion she had not gone. The second confirmatory breakthrough comes when he receives through the post a paper clipping for the death of Mr Errera that he had only been identified from documents in his wallet, the body being smashed from being it by a train in the Cosenza area! Things moved fast as next the paramedic contacted after being told to be ready for another pick up.

Salvo also meets with the journalist whose investigation concerns the trafficking in immigrant children who come in their thousands alone from Albania, Rumania, former Yugoslavia and Moldavia, Morocco , Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh etc. The main purpose is use them for organ transplants, to sell to paedophiles or to become part of he begging rackets.

The journalist had come to Vigate because one of the key figures of Mafia involvement in the trafficking was seen in the area, a thirty year old with an army of killers to hand and that it was believe that in the area was a holding and sorting facility for those who would be passed on, sold, or move into terrorist cells Events them move fast with Salvo getting into major difficulties from an underwater explore and then being shot in the shoulder in an exchange of fire with one of the lieutenants involved in this horrific criminal trade.They find a group of terrified children who have been unloaded directly from the smuggling vessel to the house.

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.