The Dance of the Seagull

January 7, 2013
Camilleri's agreeable 15th Insp. Salvo Montalbano mystery (after 2012's Age of Doubt) finds the Sicilian detective sitting on the deck of his home in Vigàta, watching a seagull performing a strange death dance. The image hovers in his mind during the events that follow, the first of which is the disappearance of his right-hand man, Fazio. This news is delivered by one of his men at the police station, the devoted Catarella, who speaks in a slang that, however appropriate to his character, sounds in translation like that of a cheesy B-movie Mafia character. Nevertheless, the wonderfully rendered camaraderie between Catarella and Montalbano is one of the book's highlights. In addition to searching for the missing Fazio, Montalbano tries to identify a body found in a deserted well. Both investigations are pieces of a larger, satisfying mystery in which Montalbano investigates, among other things, the docks and late-night deliveries from fishing trawlers.

This is the fifteenth book in Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series about a Sicilian police inspector, his comrades and lovers, and the eccentric characters and deadly Mafiosi who commit the crimes he investigates. Stephen Sartarelli's translation seeks to convey the mix of Sicilian dialect and formal Italian in the dialogue with invention but mixed success. Slang is hard to translate. Grover Gardner remains a master of audiobook narration. His clear, warm voice and perfectly regulated cadence make almost any book feel like a story told by an old friend. The crimes Montalbano investigates are horrific. Despite that, Camilleri's regular references to delicious Italian dishes will make listeners' mouths water. F.C. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine