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.

January 1, 2009
Camilleris alternately brooding and life-loving Sicilian police inspector Salvo Montalbano may be the most agonizingly human lead character in the mystery genre. The inspectors all-too-recognizable shortcomings, from lethargy to lust, are on view in this latest episode in which a summer rentalprocured by Salvo for friends of his girlfriend, Liviabecomes a kind of Italian Amityville horror. If an insect infestation isnt enough to turn the holiday into a fiasco, the body found in a concealed basement apartment does the trick nicely, leaving Montalbano on the outs with Livia and forced to contend with a six-year-old murder. As the inspector endures the August heat (often by sitting in his office in his underwear), he faces an even more formidable obstacle: his overwhelming attraction to the victims stunning twin sister. Montalbanos various weaknesses lead directly to the troubling finale, leaving him forcedto, yes, strip off his clothes one more time and dive into the sea, hoping to swim away his regrets. Combine the movies Body Heat and The Seven-Year Itch, blending the noir of the former with the farce of the latter, and you have something like this beguiling tragicomedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)