Series fans will especially enjoy learning the origins of Montalbano and company. Though the title story is a bit...
In the long title story that opens this collection, Camilleri shows sardonic Sicilian Inspector Montalbano, years before he became rumpled and stricken by a perpetual midlife crisis, with vigor and swag.
Office gossip tips young Salvo Montalbano that he's about to be promoted. He's unpleasantly surprised to learn that he won't be staying in his beloved Mascalippa but consigned to Vigàta, known for its heavy Mafia population. When his girlfriend, Mery, finds out the news, she hangs up on him. The blunt effrontery of Vigàta's citizens is a challenge, as are the quirks of his new colleagues. Montalbano feels cornered into arresting a young woman who seems dumbstruck with fright but is brandishing a revolver and wants to kill a judge. The girl, Rosanna Monaco, a domestic who's barely an adult, touches Montalbano's heart. He finds trouble at her home, along with a secret lover. Intuition helps him to unravel the crime, whose solution brings him no pleasure. The novel-length story, even longer than some of Montalbano's 19 previous cases (A Beam of Light, 2015, etc.), is supplemented by an additional 20 short stories from various points in Montalbano's career. Notable among these are "Mortally Wounded," about a twisty murder probe, and "The Cat and the Goldfinch," which features some delightfully offbeat character portraits.
Series fans will especially enjoy learning the origins of Montalbano and company. Though the title story is a bit low-stakes, newcomers may be sufficiently intrigued by Camilleri's droll humor and nifty storytelling to check out the rest of the series.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312162-6
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels (Pleasantville, 2015, etc.), deserves a career breakthrough for...
What appears at first to be a double hate crime in a tiny Texas town turns out to be much more complicated—and more painful—than it seems.
With a degree from Princeton and two years of law school under his belt, Darren Mathews could have easily taken his place among the elite of African-American attorneys. Instead, he followed his uncle’s lead to become a Texas Ranger. “What is it about that damn badge?” his estranged wife, Lisa, asks. “It was never intended for you.” Darren often wonders if she’s right but nonetheless finds his badge useful “for working homicides with a racial element—murders with a particularly ugly taint.” The East Texas town of Lark is small enough to drive through “in the time it [takes] to sneeze,” but it’s big enough to have had not one, but two such murders. One of the victims is a black lawyer from Chicago, the kind of crusader-advocate Darren could have been if he’d stayed on his original path; the other is a young white woman, a local resident. Both battered bodies were found in a nearby bayou. His job already jeopardized by his role in a race-related murder case in another part of the state, Darren eases his way into Lark, where even his presence is enough to raise hackles among both the town’s white and black residents; some of the latter, especially, seem reluctant and evasive in their conversations with him. Besides their mysterious resistance, Darren also has to deal with a hostile sheriff, the white supremacist husband of the dead woman, and the dead lawyer’s moody widow, who flies into town with her own worst suspicions as to what her husband was doing down there. All the easily available facts imply some sordid business that could cause the whole town to explode. But the deeper Darren digs into the case, encountering lives steeped in his home state’s musical and social history, the more he begins to distrust his professional—and personal—instincts.
Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels (Pleasantville, 2015, etc.), deserves a career breakthrough for this deftly plotted whodunit whose writing pulses throughout with a raw, blues-inflected lyricism.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-36329-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mulholland Books/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.
Who killed the milkman?
Unlike other companies that keep cows in crowded and unhealthy conditions right in New York City and add things like chalk and plaster to make their milk look better, Clarence Pritchard’s milk processing firm delivers pasteurized, unadulterated milk from upstate farms. The Pritchards’ daughter, Theda, is married to Nelson Ellsworth, whose parents are neighbors of detectives Sarah and Frank Malloy (Murder on Union Square, 2018, etc.). Before they attend a dinner party at the Ellsworths’ home, the Malloys are warned that Pritchard is seriously nettled that the upcoming year of 1900 will not be celebrated as the turn of the century. When Pritchard’s body is found strangled on the first day of the new year (though not the first of the new century) after he’s spent the night pestering people about his theory, it’s clear that someone’s paid off the police to ignore the case. Theda demands an investigation by Malloy and his partner, Gino Donatelli, both of whom were New York police officers before Frank’s sudden wealth encouraged him to open a private investigation agency. Sarah, a former midwife from a society family, subsidizes a home for unwed mothers whose recent clients include Jocelyn Vane. Because Jocelyn’s wealthy parents won’t let her keep her child, Sarah hatches a plot to marry her to Black Jack Robinson, a handsome, wealthy, cultured criminal with aspirations to join society. Pritchard’s murder is still unsolved when his son, Harvey, is also strangled. Malloy discovers that Mrs. Pritchard had a longtime lover who poses as a family friend and that Harvey’s gambling addiction forced his father to allow someone to use their milk delivery wagons to move stolen goods. Since both deaths may be connected to deeper criminal enterprises, Malloy must be cautious in his investigation and rely on help from Robinson if he’s not to become the next victim.
Period details and charm abound in a mystery that packs some real surprises.Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-58663-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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