Montalbano’s colleagues, chance encounters, Sicilian mores, even the contents of his fridge are described with the wit and gusto that make this narrator the best company in crime fiction today
Guardian
Among the most exquisitely crafted pieces of crime writing available today . . . Simply superb
Sunday Times
One of fiction’s greatest detectives and Camilleri is one of Europe’s greatest crime writers
Daily Mail
The Other End of the Line is the twenty-fourth darkly humorous Inspector Montalbano mystery from the international bestselling author Andrea Camilleri.
In Inspector Montalbano’s coastal town of Vigàta, a surge of migrants have been coming in by boat, and all the town’s hands are on deck to help the arrivals. At the heart of the scene are the police – on the lookout for the people smugglers responsible – and long night-shifts are rendering Inspector Montalbano and his officers exhausted.
Then one night, while Montalbano is enduring yet another gruelling stint at the port, a separate crime is committed – unexplained, unexpected, and unpleasant. Elena, the dressmaker at the town’s famous tailors, has been found dead – slaughtered by her own scissors . . .
As a swell of desperate people arrive in search of a better life, Inspector Montalbano finds himself trying to unravel the mystery of who murdered the dressmaker. But as he makes his enquiries, the Inspector can’t help but wonder: what will happen if he keeps tugging on this thread? And what will he find at the end of the line?
Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy’s most popular writers. His Inspector Montalbano series has sold over sixty-five million copies worldwide and been translated into thirty-two languages, as well as being adapted for Italian television aired on BBC4.
Camilleri’s iconic police-procedural series transports the reader to the fictional town of Vigàta on the sun-drenched Italian island of Sicily. However, all is not as idyllic on the isle as it looks, with reports of crimes and mysterious occurrences keeping the police department busy.
Inspector Montalbano is at the forefront of any investigation, tackling every case with his astute detective work, fractious manner and reliance on delicious meals eaten in perfect silence. The novels see him uncovering Mafia-led activity, tracking down murderers and drug-rings and stopping inexplicable overnight kidnappings. The series begins with The Shape of Water, in which Montalbano is called to The Pasture, a trash-strewn site favoured by drug dealers, where the body of an engineer has been discovered . . .
'Inspector Montalbano is one of fiction’s greatest detectives and Camilleri is one of Europe’s greatest crime writers.’ Daily Mirror