Marilyn Stasio
There's a deliciously playful quality to the mysteries Andrea Camilleri writes about a lusty Sicilian police detective named Salvo Montalbano…Taking aim at the idle rich, Camilleri skewers their rude manners, their affected airs and their ostentatious amusements…
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Montalbano uses some creative chicanery and tweaking of the law to provide a dramatic and satisfying conclusion.”
Booklist
This series is distinguished by Camilleri’s remarkable feel for tragicomedy, expertly mixing light and dark in the course of producing novels that are both comforting and disturbing.”
SoundCommentary.com
Teens and adults alike will enjoy this highly entertaining, humorous, full of local color, twelfth in the Inspector Montalbano series. Exerienced narrator Grover Gardner does a great job with Camilleri’s description of the Sicilian locale and characters. His treatment of spoken Italian dialogue enhances the humor of the story. The major characters, who are mostly professional and upper-class, speak straight English, no Italian accents. The regular policemen on the force, waiters, the housekeeper speak a ‘spoof’ Italian. This division of language treatment fits the ‘keystone cops,’ slapstick humor of the story, and makes the story laugh-out-loud funny.”
Kirkus Reviews
Unlike Donna Leon’s Venice, with its constant drip-drip-drip of official corruption, Camilleri’s Sicily has long since surrendered to despairing ennui. Suave, resourceful Montalbano is both its perfect expression and its best hope for an antidote.”
AudioFile
The irascible police inspector Salvo Montalbano…is splendidly evoked by Grover Gardner…Italian accents do not rule Gardener’s narration, but the voices of the gruff Montalbano, his seductive female acquaintances, and his hard-pressed staff are all unique snapshots of character...Immensely entertaining.”
From the Publisher
"This series is distinguished by Camilleri's remarkable feel for tragicomedy, expertly mixing light and dark in the course of producing novels that are both comforting and disturbing."
-Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
Not even his home is safe from repeated violation in Chief Inspector Salvo Montalbano's latest case.
Awakening from unpleasant dreams, Chief Inspector Montalbano discovers a dead horse lying on the beach outside his house in Marinella. The poor animal has clearly run quite a distance from the spot where it was attacked. But why would someone batter a horse with iron bars and then, while the investigating officers were having coffee, come back to steal the carcass? Rachele Esterman, who's convinced the horse is her missing sorrel Super, can't answer either question. Neither can Saverio Lo Duca, the wealthy friend who'd been boarding Super during her visit, and whose thoroughbred Rudy has also vanished. Which of the two horses collapsed outside Montalbano's house, and how can he tell for sure? The quest for answers will lead him to a society fundraiser at Fiacca, where he's squired by Rachele's friend Ingrid Sjostrom—to a stable where Rachele expresses her eagerness to tarry with her interrogator; to a lonely road in Spinoccia, where mafia executioners have dumped a human corpse just as hard to identify as the horse; and back to his own home, where thieves break in twice, once to steal a watch, the second time to return it.
Unlike Donna Leon's Venice, with its constant drip-drip-drip of official corruption, Camilleri's Sicily has long since surrendered to despairing ennui. Suave, resourceful Montalbano (The Wings of the Sphinx, 2010, etc.) is both its perfect expression and its best hope for an antidote.
