Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a lovely, naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the many suspects is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this crime.

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...

Winning fans in Europe and America for their dark sophistication and dry humor, Andrea Camilleri's crime novels are classics of the genre. Set once again in Sicily, The Patience of the Spider pits Inspector Montalbano against his greatest foe yet: the weight of his own years. Still recovering from the gunshot wound he suffered in Rounding the Mark, he must overcome self-imposed seclusion and waxing self-doubt to penetrate a web of hatred and secrets...

When a colleague extends his summer vacation, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is forced to stay in Vigàta and endure the August heat. Montalbano's long-suffering girlfriend, Livia, joins him with a friend - husband and young son in tow - to keep her company during these dog days of summer. But when the boy suddenly disappears into a narrow shaft hidden under the family's beach rental, Montalbano uncovers something terribly sinister. As the inspector spends...

In this, the most maritime of Montalbano's investigations, listeners will be struck by the change in the commissioner. 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 Vigàta 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...

A hail of bullets interrupts a period of dead calm. An elderly brother and sister open fire on the plaza below their apartment, punishing the people of Vigata for their sins. News cameras film Inspector Montalbano--gun in hand--scaling the building to capture the pair of unlikely snipers. The inspector is hailed as a hero, but soon begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to go on a "treasure hunt." Intrigued, he accepts,...

"Montalbano and his colleagues are stumped when two bombs explode outside empty warehouses, one of which is connected to a big-time drug dealer. Meanwhile, the alluring Liliana Lombardo is trying to seduce the Inspector over red wine and arancini. Between pesky reporters, amorous trysts, and cocaine kingpins, Montalbano feels as if he's being manipulated on all fronts. That is, until the inspector himself becomes the prime suspect in an unspeakably...

"Two deaths lead Inspector Montalbano into investigations of corruption and power. He investigates a robbery at a supermarket, a standard case that takes a spin when manager Guido Borsellino is later found hanging in his office. Was it a suicide? The inspector and the coroner have their doubts, and further investigation leads to the director of a powerful local company. Meanwhile, a girl is found brutally murdered in Giovanni Strangio's apartment--Giovanni...

This novel in the New York Times bestselling series has Italy's favorite detective uncovering corruption and mafia ties in the world of construction and public spending. On a gloomy morning in Vigata, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiu 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,...

A wave of refugees has arrived on the Sicilian coast, and Inspector Montalbano and his team have been stationed at port. But while on duty at the dock one late night, tragedy strikes, and a seamstress is found gruesomely murdered. Between managing the growing crowds at the landing, Montalbano delves into the world of garments where he works to weave together the loose threads of the unsolved crimes and close the case.

"Mimi Augello is visiting his lover when the woman's husband unexpectedly returns to the apartment; he climbs out the window and into the downstairs apartment, but one danger leads to another. In the dark he sees a body lying on the bed. Shortly after, another body is found, and the victim is Carmelo Catalanotti, a director of bourgeois dramas with a harsh reputation for the acting method he developed for his actors. Are the two deaths connected?...

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...

"Originally published in Italian as: Morte in mare aperto e altre indagini del giovane Montalbano, by Sellerio Editore, Palermo."-