The Other End of the Line

July 1, 2019
The dramatic 24th series novel from bestseller Camillieri (after The Overnight Kidnapper) finds Insp. Salvo Montalbano and his team at their breaking point as they deal with hundreds of refugees pouring into the Sicilian town of Vigàta in barely seaworthy boats from North Africa. Their duties include shepherding new arrivals for processing and solving horrible crimes committed during harrowing journeys. Meanwhile, Montalbano’s girlfriend, Livia, chides him into getting a new suit for a celebration friends of hers are putting on for their 25th wedding anniversary. Elena, the tailor who’s making the suit, unexpectedly captivates him. Elena’s subsequent murder gives the world-weary detective a terrible puzzle to solve amid the larger crisis. As usual, Montalbano seeks solace in good food and ruminative walks. Scenes set at the station house, rich with Sicilian dialect, provide just the rich amount of comic relief. The multilayered plot seizes the reader’s imagination as much as it engages Montalbano’s keen detective instincts. Fans will hope this long-running series never ends. Agent: Carmen Prestia, Alferjeprestia (Italy).

July 1, 2019
Who could have murdered the lovely tailor without an enemy in the world? Livia, the pampered longtime love of rumpled Sicilian Inspector Montalbano (The Overnight Kidnapper, 2019, etc.), insists that he trade his closetful of "corpse" suits for a new one more appropriate for the marriage renewal ceremony they've been invited to attend. All of Montalbano's predictable objections are quelled when he meets the lovely blonde tailor Elena, who utterly charms him. Meanwhile, a boatload of immigrants, some injured, and an unidentified floating body occupy Montalbano and his laid-back squad room. Could the two cases be related? When Leena, one of the migrants, reports having been raped on the journey, Montalbano does his best to interrogate the perp, who doesn't speak Italian but communicates through a translator. Protesting his innocence, he claims that he witnessed the crime and was threatened by the rapists. The deplorable problems of the migrants overwhelm Montalbano, and the unexpected news of Elena's murder sends him over the edge. The seamstress was stabbed multiple times with a pair of scissors. Montalbano also finds a piece of fabric stretched taut and covered in blood, but he doesn't find her cellphone. The first suspect he questions is her boyfriend, the publisher Trupia, who reveals that Elena recently rejected his proposal of marriage. Her confession that she'd been unhappily married before surprised Trupia and puts Montalbano on the winding path to the mystery's solution. Fans should especially enjoy the expanded role of the detective's lover in his droll, clever 24th outing.

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August 1, 2019
Sicilian inspector Salvo Montalbano, Sicily's Philip Marlowe, returns a twenty-fifth time (after The Overnight Kidnapper, 2019), doing his idiosyncratic best to keep his lover, Livia, happy; deal with a wave of tragic refugee arrivals on the coast; and solve the savage murder of a local seamstress. As always, he is fueled by a constant supply of gold-star dishes from his housekeeper, Adelina, and the mouth-watering delights on offer at old friend Enzio's trattoria. He first encounters the seamstress, Elena, when, Livia-beleaguered, he reluctantly agrees to get a new suit for a wedding, having been told there is nothing but the corpses of old ones in his closet. While a work-weary Montalbano is dealing with the horrors that plague the refugees, he learns that Elena has been butchered in a startling manner with her own shears. Along with his customary posse, and Elena's orphaned cat, Montalbano relies on his extraordinary, at times mystical, talents?and, despite a few of his customary blunders, identifies the killer. A witty and well-crafted addition to Camilleri's oeuvre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)