The second Inspector Montalbano novel clocks in at more than twice the length of The Shape of Water, which suggests to me that Camilleri was entering a comfort zone. The physical and social environment were set, from the town of Vigàta and its environs to Montalbano’s regular squad of lieutenants: Augello, the second in command he doesn’t trust; Fazio, who he does trust; Gallo, who drives too fast, Galluzzo, who has the brother who’s a reporter ; Tortorella, who was shot in the gut; and Catarella, who talks funny and isn’t that bright. For a self-described “solitary hunter,” Montalbano has a lot of help to call on. And there are also other secondary characters who recur, like Montalbano’s mistress Livia, Jacomuzzi at the crime lab, the lefty journalist Nicolò Zito, the antiquarian Judge Lo Bianco, and Dr. Pasquano at the morgue. I was surprised that Ingrid, the Swedish babe from The Shape of Water, was back, and that Gegè, the childhood friend turned pimp, wasn’t long for this world, but otherwise the cast of characters already felt quite familiar.

Montalbano himself is also coming into better focus. A gourmand, though he doesn’t cook much himself, he’s also quite a cultured man. By himself he whistles Schubert’s Eighth, and “it came out splendidly, he didn’t miss a note.” When trying to figure out where Ingrid’s housekeeper has come from he tries giving her the name of Gaugin’s Manau tupapau, which she doesn’t recognize and thus eliminates Polynesia. When an old man comes to visit the well-read inspector identifies him as being “a perfect double” of “a jacket-flap photo of Jorge Luis Borges.” Discussing the case with the commissioner they liken the proceedings to something from Pirandello, then Sciascia. In his downtime Montalbano rereads Faulkner’s Pylon . . . for the fifth time! I don’t think there are more than a hundred people alive in the world today who have read Pylon five times. It comes in handy, however, as it gives him an idea on how to draw someone out of hiding.

Montalbano’s not all high-brow though. He likes detective fiction, and at one point decides “that in matters of taste he was closer to Maigret than to Pepe Carvalho.” Carvalho being the name of a detective appearing in novels written by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, a writer from Barcelona who Montalbano feels a connection with due to their having the same surname. Montalbano’s name was, in fact, an homage to Montalbán, so we’re getting pretty meta.

The main case itself here is a historical one, as a pair of bodies are discovered in a cave where they’ve been sealed away for the last fifty years. But as the commissioner recognizes, this is just the kind of case that Montalbano enjoys: “because even if you were to find the solution, it would prove utterly useless. Just the sort of uselessness that you would find amusing and – excuse me for saying so – almost congenial.” The only problem with it, from my point of view, is that it’s not the kind of case that you can play along with. Montalbano only figures out what’s going on because he’s able to talk to a bunch of old people with very good memories, gets lucky by hearing a story relating to the crime scene while out for a walk, and has the fellow who put the bodies in the cave show up on his doorstep and explain everything at the end.

I call the cave business the main case because there’s a bunch of other stuff going on about mafia turf wars and local murders and heists, but this remains on the level of background noise. As I noted in my review of The Shape of Water, Montalbano’s Vigàta is a fantastically violent place. I don’t know how realistic that is, though. Perhaps no more so than Montalbano reading obscure Faulkner novels. I’m sure you wouldn’t find many inspectors as well read as Montalbano today anywhere in the world, and probably not even in the 1990s, which really was a different world when it came to the place books had in people’s lives. Then again, Italy might also just be very different in that respect. Meanwhile, that the high culture rubs shoulders with such violence and ubiquitous crude insults feels like more than just local colour. If Sicily really is like that then I don’t think I’d feel very at home.

Montalbano index