Formulaic but always a joy. ( )

Short! Very short, Great though! We really enjoy this world. We get a lot of laughs and love puzzling out the mystery. Delicious food description always makes my mouth water. ( )

3.5*

I enjoyed this book but Montalbano's worries about getting older, while less in this one than the previous book, irritate me. Maybe because I am getting older myself!

As in some of the previous books, Montalbano has a dream at the beginning of the book. However, in this book, there are several times during the course of the story when he refers to it to others as if it had really happened which struck me as odd.

The mystery itself was satisfyingly complex. ( )

La explosión de un pequeño artefacto frente a un almacén vacío, en pleno centro de Vigàta, y la consiguiente investigación puesta en marcha por el comisario Montalbano y su equipo, precipitan una serie de acontecimientos que se suceden de forma caótica y vertiginosa: pistas contradictorias, cartas anónimas, delaciones misteriosas... Montalbano tiene la sensación de que alguien pretende guiar sus pasos, confundirlo y manejarlo como si fuera una marioneta, alejándolo de la verdad de los hechos. Y cuando además entra en escena Liliana, su nueva vecina, una mujer de rompe y rasga cuyo marido se halla a menudo ausente por razones de trabajo, Salvo se encontrará inmerso en un mar de confusión que dificultará su trabajo más allá de lo tolerable. Realidad e ilusión se confunden en esta última entrega del comisario Salvo Montalbano, en la que Andrea Camilleri rememora la magistral escena de los espejos de La dama de Shanghai, de Orson Welles, en la que sólo una de las imágenes es la auténtica. Para escapar de este laberinto de reflejos, Montalbano habrá de recurrir a su veteranía y su finísima intuición, sin perder nunca el irreverente sentido del humor que lo caracteriza

An enjoyable, but lighthearted read. When I finished, I was reminded of the Spenser series by Robert Parker. Formulaic, but there was a decent mystery, and a focus on good meals. Someone is working hard to misdirect Salvo Montalbano and his colleagues with anonymous tips. How are a couple of warehouse bombings and a dead set of lovers related? Of course, Montalbano has an attractive young woman to chase, his girlfriend Livia is away, but a bothersome nuisance nonetheless (like the Commissioner), and Catarella is butchering names and words worse than usual so all the characters are back. However, these characters are getting a bit stale -- some more character development would be refreshing. ( )