Death at Sea

Starred review from July 16, 2018
Set in 1980s Vigàta, Sicily, the eight stories in this delightful collection from CWA International Dagger Award–winner Camilleri (The Pyramid of Mud), show a young Salvo Montalbano encountering tricky situations and crimes that can’t always be solved by traditional police work. The cast is familiar, even though Camilleri has not yet rounded the interplay of his main characters into a mature form. Livia is already Salvo’s lover; Insp. Mimi Augello and Detective Fazio are already his able assistants; and office aide Catarella is butchering the language as usual. Highlights include “Room Number 2,” in which Salvo solves an arson case, and “Double Investigation,” in which he has a seminal confrontation with Augello. Salvo’s cleverness derails a complex drug operation in “Death at Sea.” Pamela, an unlikely but sexually voracious barmaid, disappears in “The Stolen Message,” and Salvo figures out the surprising reason why. This is a must for Montalbano fans and anyone else who values superb plotting. Agent: Carmen Prestia, Carmen Prestia Agenzia Letteraria (Italy).

Grover Gardner returns as Sicily's tenacious Inspector Salvo Montalbano in these stories from early in Montalbano's career. Stephen Sartarelli made specific dialect choices when translating author Andrea Camilleri's mysteries into English, and series narrator Gardner again faithfully follows his direction. Newcomers to the series may be surprised by Montalbano's gravelly voice and American accent, but series fans will immediately recognize and accept it, along with Officer Catarella's broad Brooklyn accent (and name-mangling tendencies). In all, there are many other returning--and new--characters, all of whom sound like they came straight out of one or another New York City borough. Camilleri's penchant for including harsh political and social realities keeps these stories well out of the cozy category, but without depriving them of their humor and charm. K.W. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine