The Cook of the Halcyon

December 21, 2020
Bestseller Camilleri’s charming 27th mystery featuring Insp. Salvo Montalbano (after 2020’s The Sicilian Method) begins when a factory worker in Vigàta, Sicily, angry over recent layoffs, hangs himself. That the factory’s owner, Giovanni Trincanato, shows no remorse over the layoffs angers Montalbano. In the course of his investigation, the inspector connects the arrival of two women in town purporting to be highly paid escorts to Trincanato and a large schooner called the Halcyon that’s come into port and is oddly bereft of passengers. When Trincanato is shot dead, Montalbano vows to find out who’s behind the murder. Meanwhile, officials tell Montalbano to start taking mandatory vacation days in preparation to retire, and he realizes he’s being pushed out of his job. Undaunted, Montalbano strives to figure out what links a series of seemingly unrelated yet suspicious events. Once again, Camilleri, who died in 2019, does a fine job balancing comedy and crime. Readers will hope this isn’t their last visit to Vigàta. Agent: Carmen Prestia, Alferjeprestia (Italy).

March 1, 2021
When Camilleri died in 2019, he had finished but not yet published a few installments in his renowned Inspector Salvo Montalbano series. This is book number 27 (following The Sicilian Method, 2020) and the next, Riccardino, will be the last. Here, Montalbano awakens from one of his prophetic dreams to find himself investigating a murder he believes is somehow tied to a suspicious yacht called The Halcyon. While visiting his on-again, off-again significant other, Livia, in Genoa, he learns that his job in Vig�ta is in jeopardy. Suspecting he is being railroaded into retirement, then hearing that he has been fired, he returns to Sicily only to find that he is being secretly seconded to the FBI, already engaged in an investigation of The Halcyon. Posing as a cook--he has been taking lessons from his housekeeper, Adelita, with an eye toward one day opening a small restaurant--and disguised by ash-blond hair and a British-style moustache, Montalbano soon finds himself dangerously deep in the belly of the beast. Readers will want the recipe for the inspector's g�teau surprise and will hope there's a cookbook still resting in Camilleri's desk.

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