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 Cook of the Halcyon is the twenty-seventh Inspector Montalbano mystery from the master of Sicilian crime, Andrea Camilleri.
Moments later the all-white schooner, which looked like a hospital ship, began to pass ever so slowly before him, as if wanting to show itself off in all its beauty. The name on the prow said: Halcyon.
Two deaths – the suicide of a recently fired worker and the murder of an unscrupulous businessman – lead Inspector Montalbano to the Halcyon, a mysterious ship that visits Vigàta’s port each day. With very few crewmen, no passengers and a stern large enough to land a helicopter, it piques the Inspector’s interest straightaway.
In the midst of this, a rare trip to Genoa to visit Livia ends with the Vigàta police department in disarray, and Inspector Montalbano’s position as the head of the commissariat in jeopardy. It will be up to Montalbano to fix the damage done.
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