August Heat

Starred review from January 26, 2009
Camilleri’s 10th mystery to feature Sicilian Insp. Salvo Montalbano (after 2008’s Paper Moon
) cleverly balances a compelling story line with engaging characters. Urged by his girlfriend, Livia, to find a summer rental for a friend of hers in Vigàta, Montalbano ends up selecting a house with a tainted past. The man who built the house died in a fall soon after its construction, and his 20-year-old stepson, Ralf Gudrun, vanished. After the young son of Livia’s friend disappears, Montalbano finds the missing boy, essentially unharmed, but in the process stumbles upon a corpse, later identified as that of an attractive 16-year-old girl who disappeared six years earlier. Suspects include a real estate developer with unhealthy sexual appetites as well as the missing Gudrun. While the solution is less complicated than, say, those Peter Lovesey provides for his similar series sleuth, Peter Diamond, the humor and humanity of Montalbano make him an equally winning lead character.

While coastal Italy is awash in sweltering heat, Sicilian Police Inspector Salvo Montalbano is distracted by a gruesome discovery made in a friend's beach villa. The puzzling death of a young girl years earlier becomes his obsession while he survives the heat by indulging in his fondness for the local cuisine, cool swims, and scathing commentaries on Italian society. Sartarelli's translation captures the region's quaint idioms and slang without losing clarity or humor. Grover Gardner performs the role of the melancholy yet driven Montalbano with artistry, balancing cantankerousness with geniality. However, his baffling infusion of an American "gangsta" accent for police force underlings and construction laborers grates a bit. Fans of Camilleri's nine other mysteries will miss the common-sense injections of Montalbano's girlfriend. A.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine