Stephen Sartarelli

One night, Inspector Montalbano dreams of a stormy sea, which he knows represents unease and loss of control. The next day, a boat is found in the port of Vigata, and within it, the body of a disfigured corpse. The waterfront has also drawn in an eighty-five-foot luxury boat passengered by fifty carefree souls and a somewhat shadowy crew. They will have to stay in Vigata until the investigation is over -- the man, it seems, was poisoned. However,...

The moody Inspector Montalbano is further beset by the existential questions that have been plaguing him of late. But he doesn't have much time to wax philosophical before the gruesome murder of a man -- shot at point-blank range in the face with his pants down -- commands his attention. Add two evasive, beautiful women as prime suspects, some dirty cocaine, mysterious computer codes, and a series of threatening letters, and things soon get very complicated...

An unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for its soil rich with potter's clay. Meanwhile, a woman reports the disappearance of her husband, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins who turns out to be related to a local mobster. Then Inspector Montalbano remembers the story from the Bible-- Judas's betrayal, the act of remorse, and the money for the potter's field, where those of unknown or foreign origin are to be buried-- and slowly,...

"The day gets off to a bad start for Montalbano: while trying to break up a fight on Marinella beach, he hits the wrong man and is stopped by the Carabinieri. When he finally gets to the office, the inspector learns about a strange abduction: a woman was abducted, drugged, and then released unharmed a few hours later. A few days later, the same thing happens again. The only link between the two events is that both women are thirty years old and work...

The sixth mystery in the Inspector Montalbano series, THE SMELL OF THE NIGHT brings the shady shenanigans of late twentieth-century international finance to small-town Sicily. A "financial wizard" entrusted with the savings of nearly half the retirees of Vigata mysteriously disappears with the money and a young man who worked for him. In a rather atypical case for Montalbano, the inspector finds himself initially shut out of the investigation by the...

On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site--a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts,...

Still recovering from his gunshot wound, Inspector Montalbano is feeling the weight of his years, and of his solitude. He's getting softer, more introspective, and critical of his life choices. But if withdrawing from society has become natural of late, he'll soon be forced to interact with others, compelled to intervene as a web of hatred and secrets threatens to squeeze its victims to death. This is Montalbano's most unusual and challenging case...

Sicily's Inspector Salvo Montalbano investigates two seemingly unrelated crimes -- the murder of a young Casanova and the mysterious disappearance of an elderly couple during an excursion to Tindari.

"Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call, but this time it's not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who's dialed a wrong number and asks him when he'll be arriving at the meeting. Montalbano, in irritation, says: "In ten minutes." Shortly after, he gets another call, this one announcing the customary murder. A man has been shot and killed outside a bar in front of his three friends. It turns out to be the same man who...

"From the author of the New York Times-bestselling Inspector Montalbano mystery series, twenty-one short stories spanning the beloved detective's career. Inspector Montalbano has charmed readers in nineteen popular novels, and now in Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected twenty-one short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy's famous detective through highlight cases of his career....