Andrea Camilleri's The Scent of the Night

The eighth book I have read in reverse order is the Scent of the Night which is primarily a story about a financial swindle plus unrequited love.

There is a sub plot which for once is unconnected with the main story. The Commissioner discovers that the murdered mother of Françoise, the child he and Livia were to adopt but since this had taken place with the sister of Mimi and her husband and two sons, had a substantial amount of money in account where the pass book had been taken by Salvo. Now we as readers of the book in question Salvo not wanting the state to take hold of the money had asked a local Magistrate notary to take the account and invest on behalf of he boy until he was of an age to benefit. Fortunately he had received a receipt and the child been formally adopted. However in the natural course of his life he had forgotten about this and disclosed to anyone including his long distance partner Livia, his deputy Mini or he sister and her family. Being Salvo he was understandably aghast at the accusation knowing that the Commissioner was not his friend. Rather than explain the position given the attitude of the Commissioner he visits the notary who has retired and is momentarily anxious in case the money was invested in the King Midas Fund but all is well and the funds are secure and he finds the receipt which he sends without explanation to the Commissioner. With lots of goodies he goes to see the sister and explains the position which she takes in her stride. The boy now has his own horse and tells Salvo that his ambition is to become a policeman when he grows up. He also find out that Livia has been to see the boy secretly and this does not help the difficulties the couple are experiencing.

The main story begins when an angry investor tries to hold up the King Midas Associates office of the head the one man investment company who had disappeared. The swindle is a familiar one. Investors are offered an exceptional rate of interest of 20%. This is paid to the first investors which is in effect one fifth of the amount invested at that point. The consequence is that all their friends relatives and friends what to join in and offer more money as well as some of the original investors. The swindler then arranges to disappear with all these funds which he has invested in various off shore accounts. The Inspector investigates the two assistants and the secretary receptionist office keeper. According to the office assistant the young man who dealt with the computerisation of accounts had gone to Germany and would be back within a month. The team discover that in fact he had not gone to Germany but had bought a ticket to another destination which he had also not used thus attempting to provide a false trail.

They discover that this young man was having a house built on isolated land which contained the olive tree that Montalbano would visit and talk to seek answers when he was stuck on a case. When he discovers that the tree has been torn down to build the property he breaks windows and splashes graffiti and action which is discovered by an assistant who nevertheless covers up when the father of the man makes a formal complaint about the vandalism attack. Payments for the house appear to have been made direct to the young man from account of his employer but were not part of the swindled funds.

The other assistant is an attractive young woman Michela Manganaro living with her parents in a ten story block of public housing and in bed when Salvo calls and finds that she is strapping, tall and beautiful with a brief miniskirt and a blouse barely containing her other attributes. It emerged she had already been seen by his deputy and he quickly assumed seen in every despite the engagement to Beatrice and the forthcoming wedding. She regarded Mimi with hostility, hence also the Inspector because his deputy had not disclosed the engagement and marriage until after their encounter. They go on a car ride so she can talk freely and during their conversation the Inspector asks if she had slept with her boss. She laughs and discloses that he is gay and that he was having a relationship with the other assistant, the man who said he was going to Germany but who whereabouts also remained unknown. She had that from the public appearance he was courting her and his secretary Maristella who he showered with chocolates and flowers and who adored him.

The search for the assistant continued until evidence of buying but not using a ticket to Lisbon leads them back to the half built villa where they find two packed suitcases but they do not find a brief case which they find contained diskettes and computer account codes.

It is then he decides to approach a retired university teacher who has caused previous amusement mixed with irritation from reporting saving seen tings like flying saucers and aliens. The married man appears sane and sensibility but admit he does end to see things are not there but figments of his imagination but in this instance he is adamant about seeing a car and a motorbike in an area on a cliff top known to be used by lovers while taking of his usual late night walkabouts. It appears to be the car used by the missing King Midas swindler. The inspector visits the place, looks over onto the rocks below and then arranges one of his diving expeditions. He arranges for the vehicle to be raised with inside the body of the shot assistant.

Salvo began to work out the mystery and that the assistant had in turn worked out not only what King Midas was doing but how and used this knowledge to blackmail his boss and lover into ensuring their relationship was to be long term. Despite being in love with the assistant the boss knew his own future was in question wile the young man lived and had killed him. This knocked on the head the belief that the two men had been killed by the Mafia upset to find that their money laundering investments were part of the swindle. But where is he?

It then that the maestro works out that the secretary is more involved that she has let on as she did not appear surprised when the Inspector had reported various developments and concerns. She was convinced King Midas would return as would the male assistant. He learns from the friend (Voice of the Violin previously) who is a distant relative of the secretary that she lives alone in a great house inherited from her parents and that she had been very attached to her father to an extent she had not reported his death for several days as if unaware he had died. After he witnesses he involvement as a pedestrian in car accident he helps her home after she refused to go to the hospital. He persuades her to show him the home and finds King Mafia dead, shot with the briefcase nearby in a bedroom with the woman genuinely unaware he is there, repressing what she has done. After shooting his lover he turned to her for help and she had killed him, perhaps to save him from what lay ahead when he was caught. They may never come to really known her motive at the time. He arranges for the doctor to send her into a long sleep so he can have forensics in the house and remove the body the following morning. The case is solves and the briefcase will enable the authorities to find the missing money.

Having commenced with food and end with first Salvo wolfing two servings of grilled fish as first and second courses and then having an explored her finds a rural restaurant no more than eight tables in the middle of nowhere. He is given a jug of dense red wine while the food is prepared. He is offered burning piraciati something the Inspector accepts even thought he warned, “if you are up to it. His mouth burns and he chokes when it arrives and then enquires what is in it! Olive oil, half an onion two cloves of garlic, two salted anchovies, a teaspoon of fine capers, black olives, tomatoes, basil, half a pimento, salt, pecorino cheese and black pepper. Extreme cooking proving pleasure and agony intermingled. He was unable to eat a second course as it took a day for the taste buds to return! He also enjoys nannatu, flat crispy dumplings studied with fish eyes from the tiny baby fish not thrown back to the sea and cooked with lemon. To punish himself for eating a technically illegal dish he does not ear another course. Returning from an unsatisfactory day’s work and an unholy exchange with Livia as he forgets she is coming over fort he wedding and has purchased the present he has forgotten he finds a dish of patati cunsati- a potato based dish with onions, capers, olives, salt and pepper and this is the overture to the arrival of Mimi having second thoughts about the wedding and in need of several tots of whisky. During the visit to see Mimi’s sister he had eaten pasta al ragu and pork and on return he cooked himself and egg with four fresh sardines tossed in olive oil, vinegar and oregano. Feeling hungry the following day he goes to the restaurant for the pasta in squid ink and a dozen baby octopus dumplings.

And Mimi ? Well the wedding is delayed a month because of a family illness but it does take place with him as witness accompanied by Livia. And as for the book it does not satisfy as much as several of the others and I wish I had read them

Montalbano book six Rounding the Mark

Rounding the Mark is the sixth Andrea Camilleri book in the Montalbano police detective series that I have enjoyed reading over the first weeks of August 2013. I should have read the Scent of the Night, the next book in sequence but in fact Round the Mark has a great connection with Excursion to Tindari the previous book reviewed which covered the exploiting, maiming and murder of poor people, frequently migrants, for their organs by a Mafia funded and organised operation!!!!

In this book Montalbano, given his age and foodie lifetsyle, takes one of his long and potentially dangerous swims given his proneness to cramp and encounters a badly decomposed body which he manages to get ashore by using his swimming trunks much to the horror of a visiting couple whose husband keep Montalbano at bay until his colleague police officers and a TV camera arrive to give the scene a national significance.

Who is this man and how he got to where he is found is the first question followed by did Inspector Salvo Montalbano do the right thing in reuniting an illegal migrant runaway with his mother? Readers of this brilliant series will also ask what is the connection between the two events?

The book begins with Montalbano trying to work off one of his evening meal extravaganzas` where he has a tendency to consume several portions of some delicacy, presumably without side dishes, at times wolfing if he does not concentrate, hence the need to eat in silence even when he has excellent company. In this instance he mentions baby octopus a strascinasali, baby fish boiled in salted water and then dressed in olive oil and lemon juice which I have in stock but the baby octopus does not appeal while and sardines beccaficio- headless cleaned sardines stuffed with sautéed bread crumbs, pine nuts and anchovies all I have except the pine nuts but which I will try.

During the book the owner of the Trattoria where Salvo has many meals announces he is to retire and this cause the Inspector great anxiety and various trips in search of a replacement home from home. His daily help creates one meal a day and the Inspector is not content with making do with cheese, olives, salted sardines and salami as a second meal of the day. After experimenting in half a dozen places the one found which is passable involves a car journey which being such a busy man created problems. He therefore takes up a suggestion of a Trattoria recommended by a friend of his deputy Mimi. The owner chef Enzo and been waiting for him to arrive having heard thought the grapevine the Calvary, the Inspector faced.

He has an antipasto of salted octopus followed by the pasta with a sauce off squid ink(There are 12 results for this on Amazon). He then has a fish grill which included mullet, sea bass and gilthead reminding of what if the great meals experience when visiting in Northern France one year commencing with a whole dressed crab on shell and claws to crack with a bottle of white Sancerre, followed by a red mullet with more wine and the crème caramel before coffee. I still have the receipt somewhere.

As the pressure of the case built up Salvo rejects beef roulades left for him by the daily help and goes to the Trattoria Enzo for more spaghetti in squid ink followed by crispy fried calamaretti. As his mood improves he enjoys a pasta ncasiata from the oven. Having persuaded his married Swedish friend Ingrid to assist in his inquiry she takes him out for meal comprising a dish of ditalini in a sauce of fresh and properly salted ricotta with pecorino and black pepper on top. The second course was costi imbriachi, drunken pork ribs drowning in wine and tomato concentrates. He is supposed to pay but forgets his wallet.

All this food makes my hungry for good cooking but I am unlikely to try making most of the top ten public voted Italian dishes which were broadcast on More Four on Saturday August 10^th 2013 and which would have sent Salvo into raptures of ecstasy with the insistence on freshly made with the best ingredients, except there was little mention of the fish other than part of a pasta dish with, clams. The most favoured was the Pizza, not surprising and the gelato form of ice cream. I was most interested by the making of lasagne and an aubergine dish, and noted the meat balls with polenta, the wild mushroom risotto, the brochette options and the tiramisu plus finding out for the first time was is gnocchi placing the recipes in my More Four scrap book just in case. I also discovered that I have a recipe book at home on the pasta which was given when I purchased a Fiat motor car one time. All making me very hungry again at writing so I had two ready made omelettes with cheese (£1) from frozen with my coffee followed by a glass of lemonade for breakfast and a few dried figs to get me going for the rest of the writing. For lunch there is a pork chop, jacket potato and corn on the cob while later afternoon there was smoked mackerel, a cheese toastie and red grapes all with lashings of lemonade.

Back to the book the problem Detective and the faces is that while body had been dead and presumably in the sea of a month at the time it was found it could only have been in the particular current for short time and from along a short distance fo coast otherwise the current would above taken long long distance further. The answer found much later is that the body was trapped in a secret small harbour attached to one of the properties put up without planning permission, part of the new towns of such properties created along this part of the Sicilian coast. The three towns although unauthorized have electricity, running water, sewerage and gas etc and pay taxes to the appropriate municipality. These property eventually get amnesty with the officer adding that there are also several houses built on the beach. This is the significant information which Salvo will eventually follow up,

The next phase of the story begins when Salvo becomes involved in the daily arrival of migrants(tourists) taken from captured or rescued stranded vessels and spots a young body breaking from the crowd who he then finds hiding in the docks and befriends reminding of his experience of the lad in the Snack Thief who he and Livia planned to adopt before the child made it plain he wanted to stay with the sister of Mimi, her husband and their two sons. When the boy is claimed by a female migrant with other children, Salvo reunites but notes the reluctance almost pleading of the boy. The mother has an accident and is taken to the local hospital by an ambulance that is regularly on hand to deal with medical problems arising for the daily arrivals and rescues. However when Montalbano goes to see the boy and his mother at the hospital he finds there is no record and a nurse later contacts to say that on returning to the hospital she had seen a woman mother with boys getting into the car a little way from the hospital and who had not appeared injured in anyway..

The Inspector then learns that the boy is found run down and killed by a car on an isolated roadway leading to or from the new towns, where the witness although from his vantage point did not have a clear view has the impression that the vehicle deliberately changed course to hit the child. Salvo understandably is very upset. This has a traumatic effect who announces to Livia he has arranged to see the Commissioner of Police to give his resignation. Meanwhile he goes over his recollection of what happened at the dockside and this leads him to make inquiries about the Ambulance paramedic.

His assistant Fazio finds out interesting things about the man such as the shop inherited by his wife burned down from arson after failure to pay protection money. However he appears to accept the Mafia involvement, expands and gets into debt with Mafia Loan Sharks. Salvo dresses up like a gangster after having a few business cards printed and engaging the help of Ingrid (the Swedish wife he assisted in a previous case) and goes to the gift shop run by the wife of ambulance paramedic to buy a present for a friend who is getting married. The impact of the visit to cause the paramedic to ask to see Salvo at home rather wait for their morning appointment.

The terrified man confirms that he has been part fo a racket helping to bring in migrant children and escaping from the authoritative by feigning an accident and need for medical help which he is on hand to take to the hospital with the help of the driver who he pays off and then enables the woman and her charges to leave just before the hospital to be picked up by the car. He admits to doing this before involving adults and children. He had given the boy a sedative to quieten him. Salvo is so angered he hits the man and blackmails him into agreeing to go through with the next request that comes, keeping the Inspector informed throughout.

During these events the team tries to find out the identity of the dead man discovered by the Inspector when swimming he is contacted by an investigative journalist who Caterella and his ability to mispronounces everything says is Pontius Pilot. On returning home has found a letter delivered from the Journalist Fonzo Spala who having seen him TV wants to meet and talk to him about his investigation into the involvement of the Mafia and illegal immigrants.

In order to have some break through Salvo gets forensics to create an image for the dead man who is recognised as Ernesto Errera, a fugitive for two years with a long criminal record but this only adds to the mystery because the man in question died previously and was buried. However Salvo remains open minded and when someone like the man in the made up photo is reported to have been seen since the alleged burial in an area of the new towns and from a small group of private and secluded villa on the beach or with sea access, he investigates further. One of the witnesses at a garage recognises not only the man but also boy who was run down. It is evident he had been taken to a property from which he has run away and then run down. The two cases have become linked.

Salvo arranges to hire a dingy to be taken along the coast so he can view the isolated and now vacant holiday villas and discovers one with warning lights for an entrance avoiding the rocks and where there is a metal barrier into a mini harbour immediately below the property. The property was created by an American Italian known for criminality, but has been recently rented out.

Salvo has the tendency to discuss his cases which ever one fo his women folk admirers has his company and after their meal out it is Ingrid who provides the information which reveals that one of her recent lovers is that same man found by the Inspector when swimming. This is a believable coincidence given the nature fo Sicilian society and the range of affairs which Ingrid enjoys.. They had met queuing for petrol. The man was married to a girl from Cosenza who died after two years. The man she knew as Ernesto D’Iunio looked as being Ernesto Errera fugitive.

The relationship had only lasted two months and she had ended because of concerns about the man. He had cancelled arrangements to meet three times arranging to see her the following night although on the third occasion she had not gone. The second confirmatory breakthrough comes when he receives through the post a paper clipping for the death of Mr Errera that he had only been identified from documents in his wallet, the body being smashed from being it by a train in the Cosenza area! Things moved fast as next the paramedic contacted after being told to be ready for another pick up.

Salvo also meets with the journalist whose investigation concerns the trafficking in immigrant children who come in their thousands alone from Albania, Rumania, former Yugoslavia and Moldavia, Morocco , Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh etc. The main purpose is use them for organ transplants, to sell to paedophiles or to become part of he begging rackets.

The journalist had come to Vigate because one of the key figures of Mafia involvement in the trafficking was seen in the area, a thirty year old with an army of killers to hand and that it was believe that in the area was a holding and sorting facility for those who would be passed on, sold, or move into terrorist cells Events them move fast with Salvo getting into major difficulties from an underwater explore and then being shot in the shoulder in an exchange of fire with one of the lieutenants involved in this horrific criminal trade.They find a group of terrified children who have been unloaded directly from the smuggling vessel to the house.

The Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri

I enjoyed rhe fourth book in the Montalbano series The Voice of the Violin, even if the reason for the title does not become apparent until towards the very end. I appreciated the character development and the continuity of some storyline relationships. Having read the first book before appreciating that the TV series had placed the book first out of sequence( The Snack Thief) I was impressed at the way the writer deals with the position of Salvo Montalbano and Livia and their decision to marry and provide a home for the now orphan boy of The Snack Thief - Françoise. During the story Salvo is asked by his deputy Mimi to visit his sister Franca where she is looking after the child with her own two boys at the family farm while the adoption process is progressed and Salvo and Livia prepare for a fundamental change in their daily lifestyles.

Given what was learned about the couple from the first book read and now the previous first two are written I suspect most readers would have guessed that marriage and becoming a day in and day out family man was not something that Salvo was cut out for and that Livia was not cut out for an continuous 24/7 relationship with a self possessed confident to point of egocentricity police Inspector. In fact it takes mature and well adjusted intelligent adults to be able to enjoy and sustain a relationship where both partners have full life occupational activities from which they get their identity and satisfaction and which involves long hours, often travel during which they are separated and are able to develop relationships with others. Having watched the Swedish Television interpretation of Wallander (Henning Mankell’s The Fifth Woman over two weeks recently and presently, The Man who smiled) I have noted many similarities between the two characters and the reasons why I identify with both of them so strongly).

In fairness to Salvo while work and thinking about work takes precedence over most other things in his life the exception is food which he insists in enjoying in silence saving each morsel which is also something of a turn off for most females! I am not saying he does not enjoy sex but I suspect he rarely loses himself completely in the way many if not most people are able to do. My main surprise is that Livia has become so attached to him. I suspect her own work has taken precedence over motherhood and that while she dislikes the fact that Montalbano is often not “with her” during her weekends in Vigáta she is just as content with their weekends and occasional holidays together when he is not fully involved in solving one or more cases.

I also need to be fair that however much he understand the situation Salvo is disappointed that the child has come to appreciate the security offered by Franca and her husband and in particular that he is sharing in the family life as a brother of the two sons who have also welcomed his arrival into the family. It is Françoise who has taken the initiative in demanding to stay however much he appreciates the visits of Salvo and Livia who rescued him during his darkest hour. While Salvo understands the boy’s position and the willingness of Franca and her husband to accept him as a full member of their family he realises this will be a devastating blow for Livia, although even he is surprised at how badly she takes the news arguing that the couple are only after someone to help work the farm and his inheritance. She needs. as she does, to make a surprise visit to the farm on her own but the shock of her rejection, as it seems to her, is the greater as a consequence. Angry with Salvo who she blames for the situation, part fo her difficult to express at times more general anger at him for attaching so much importance to his work, she leaves the island with only brief contact with the man. While the relationship continues and appears to flourish at times, some readers like me will sense that a point of no return will has been reached and question if the relationship will survive and if it does for how long.

It is also a personal event which leads Salvo into the case which is the main subject of this book. The wife of a fellow Inspector in another district is reported dead after being gravely ill for sometime and he arranges to be driven to the funeral., On their way they hit a parked car because trying to avoid a chicken which runs into the road (Returning from a coach trip to watch Durham at Old Trafford Lancashire yesterday 14^th July 2013 I encountered two baby Seagulls determined to control the entrance to the back lane with a sit down and even getting out of the car to shoo them away failed. Because of the incident and going to the wrong church they fail to make the funeral and on return finding the vehicle with their note still parked they fail to get a response from the large property where it was parked outside the main gates,

Montalbano arranges for someone to try and find out about the ownership of the House and vehicle. The property was owned by a local doctor, now deceased and inherited by his son, also a doctor, who works in Bologna who married a woman who fell in love with the property when they visited on honeymoon and decided she wanted to establish a home there, staying in the area often (at a hotel as yet undiscovered) making local friends with whom she frequently socialised and it is assumed where she was now staying and had not yet returned to the home as a consequence.

Salvo then did something for which readers familiar with his approach to policing know him only too well. Late at night he enters the property and to his horror he finds a beautiful young woman face down naked on a bed and dead.

In the previous book he had become friends with an aged disabled former school teacher whose helper disliked him but because she cooked good meals Salvo accepted the invitation to dine once a week plus sometimes attending the weekly concert lasting one hour of a famous violinist who now lived in seclusion of the floor above and because of a kindness played the concerts so the former teacher could enjoy his music from her floor and at the end of the concert she would telephone and give applause. Salvo called on the woman on the morning of a concert, almost ended, and where the woman was supplied with as handwritten note of the pieces being played. Salvo who knew little about music could at least tell it was a first class performance and joined in the applause.

The purpose of his visit was however to use the friendship to try and get him out of the problem of having unintentionally contaminated a crime scene. The woman was to the ring the police commissioner and advise that a crime had been committed at the house, mentioning that a bottle green Twingo car was outside. My God Salvo said when someone rang on behalf of the Police Commissioner and after noting the details he said he would explain the amazing coincidence!

The next story development was when Salvo is advised that the murdered woman’s husband is a doctor working in Bologna and that that his reaction, saying he was too busy at the hospital to immediate come to Sicily was odd and prompted the reader to regard the man as the immediate prime suspect. There was an explanation for his behaviour.

First the husband provided Salvo with the name of a distant relative who lived in the province and who he knew had been in contact. This information was to have significant bearing on what happened in the story. The relative had a son, described once kindly as a simple soul or as we would official say to day with learning difficulties, a problem which I remain personally familiar. It is established that the young man age thirty one and at university trying to take a first degree became besotted with the woman, following her about and when he disappears, going on the run it seemed, coinciding with the woman’s death he becomes the prime suspect by those who take over the investigation after Montalbano and his team are removed from the case when it is established that he had entered the property illegally and discovered the body providing evidence through the crime scene management and new forensic techniques which had been introduced. The young man is then killed by the police saying he was armed when they approached the entrance to the cave where he was hiding and they then arrested the father for complicity.

It take great efforts by Salvo with help from his team to establish that the young man had witnessed the murder from a tree out the bedroom. He had fallen and injured his foot which meant he found it difficult to wear his shoe and he had been holding the shoe when exited from the cave at the behest of the police. In order to save face the head of the flying squad involved had helped manufacture the evidence producing a World War 2 grenade which it was claimed he boy was holding and planting a box with another grenade, a revolver and ammunition at the home of the parent. The man is released from custody to grieve for the death of his innocent only child. Montalbano is reinstated to lead the reopened case with the police man responsible for the cover up retired.

Salvo meets Anna Tropeano an unmarried teacher who had become friends with the dead woman and with who Salvo finds attractive as well as intelligent and defensive about her friend. Salvo is able to get her initially to admit that the dead woman had a lover and subsequently that he is an antique dealer although she did not have his name and address. They became friends and as with his friend Montalbano liked to share information about the case he was working on. In this respect he is indiscreet and unprofessional and uses the media when it suits his purposes in order to achieve justice, condemning those who use the media to promote their personal positions.

Montalbano then meets the husband of the murdered woman who explains that he met her when treating her brother for an injury and who had then moved to live and work in New York. The young woman had been raped by an uncle when she was 15 years who brought her up with her brother after their parents had died. She been the mistress of an industrialist who had provided for her financially but she resented being a kept woman. The Doctor then explained that at the age of 50 he become irreversibly impotent and the marriage had been agreed as a way of preventing allegations being made against him that he was a homosexual, while she would have the security and the freedom to live the life she wanted. They had become close friends having no secrets and he had willingly provided the funds for her to create the home in Sicily. This was to be her life away from Bologna and he had not known the name of her hotel where she stayed while the construction work was undertaken.

The next development is the owner of a garage who remembered seeing the dead woman when she called at his garage on the night of the murder and the man she was with was not that of police killed student shown on TV.

The case break through comes however when the woman living below the recluse professional violinist contacts to say that the dead woman had called at home of her neighbour. The woman had discovered a violin at the property of her husband and knowing of the violinist having heard him performed had been able to get him to at the instrument which he suspect was rare and valuable. He had confirmed this and advised to let him keep the violin safe ( and play) rather than at the unoccupied property until she had arranged its sale to pay off the debt of lover who had become meshed with criminals and loan sharks through his gambling. The Maestro had given her an inexpensive but quality violin to keep in the case at the home fearing the original would be at risk. When Montalbano returned to the house he finds the violin case and the Maestro confirms that the violin inside is mass produced and worthless. The Maestro reveals why he had become a recluse which Salvo fully understands.

Salvo is then able to work out and prove that the lover had returned secretly to Sicily using a false name together with a criminal contact, The man had killed the woman face down because he could not bear her to see him after they had sex. His action had been seen by the student. The criminal contact had collected him and the violin and returned to Bologna to dispose to a private purchaser thus getting twice as much as would have been sold on the open market. The murderer shoots himself when confronted by Salvo.

I had the impression of less reference to food until checking and discovered a dish of fresh anchovies which he dresses in lemon juice, olive oil and freshly ground black pepper. He offers to share a large serving of haddock baked with a sauce of anchovies and vinegar to add to it. He enjoys baby Octopus alla Luciana- fresh tomato sauce with added hot pepper and garlic.

There is a gentle dish to tinnirume which is steamed flower tops of courgettes. Caponata which he has a generous helping is a dish made with sautéed aubergines, tomato, green pepper, garlic, onion celery, black olives, olive oil, anchovies and vinegar and served as an appetizer !!! A neopolitana coffee is made by turn a tin of coffee upside down at the point of boiling allowing the hot water to filter down through the coffee grounds by force of gravity.

I could not understand when he had taken a large cassata on the long journey to visit Franca and the boy he an Livia had intended adopting. This version is in fact a traditional Sicilian sponge cake filled with sweetened ricotta(cheese) candid fruit, raisins, pine nuts, pistachios and jam, usually apricot.

The violin was estimated to have a value of between two and three billion lire which is said to be up to £1 million.

The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleria

One of the great joys of the past couple pf years has been the showing of the Montalbano series of dramatizations of the books of Andrea Camilleri which I am now reading in sequence having mistakenly commenced with the first of the TV series but third in sequence, The Snack Thief, then going back to the first - The Shape in the Water and now having completed he reading of the second The Terracotta Dog, having also commenced to read the fourth The Voice of the Violin.

I enjoyed the reading story of the Terracota Dog which I remembered from the TV show because it is the work which introduces us two key characters, his rival and deputy Mimi Augello and his front of desk man, unintentional comedian because of the mixing up of Italian and Sicilian in a way which reminds of the fake policeman, British spy in ‘Alo ‘Alo getting his English into French pronunciation badly wrong. The book also reinforces Salvo’s adoration of food, especially of sea food and of pasta dishes with unexpected ingredients tot he sauces.

First the main story or at least what arises because of the main the story. A Mafia underboss who has been on the run for over two decades contacts the Detective Inspector through his childhood friend Gege who runs prostitutes and small times drugs on an isolated stretch of beach on the outside of the town of fictitious town of Vigáta. It is important to view Sicily as a separate country in terms of being a 10000 square mile island with a population of 5 million and where the Mafia still controls some areas which in turn as a depressing effect on the economy and tourism and which is covered in the separate dramatization of Corleone, based on the life of Salvatore Riina who for a period controlled the Mafia throughout Sicily which I shall also cover later in this writing.

In the Terracotta Dog the former Mafia underboss decides to spend the rest of his life in prison rather than be terminated by the present generation of gangsters who are not men of honour. However in order to achieve his objective he needs to be captured and this involves an elaborate scheme in which the Inspector excludes his deputy and anyone prone to seek the limelight via the media. This annoys his deputy who seriously considers putting in a bid for a transfer.

Salvo admits that he likes not only to control situations but often take time to think out what is happening and he does this best on his own as well as breaking rules by cutting corners and over stepping the mark, at times by wide margins. In this instance man is captured and placed in the hands of the special anti Mafia squad. However Salvo to his horror is required to speak at a press conference, something he usually avoids and in this situation made more difficult because he has to mislead over what really happened.

Unfortunately what happened is that the Mafia contemporaries do not buy the capture story and because of their inside connections with politicians and the Justice system they are able to badly wound the prisoner when in transit is arranged between prisons. The man requests Montalbano visits and with the dying breadth reveals the location of a cave used by the contemporary gangsters to keep their stock of weapons.

　

The cave was originally created to hide material from the German’s during World War 2 and has an ingenious entrance involving a large rock reminding of the Secret of the Santa Vittoria. Inside the cave there is flooring, walls and roofing to protect from the damp. There is something not right about the cave which the Inspector spots and again works out and finds an inner cave where there are two bodies, later confirmed as young people of both sexes, arms entwined and shot. There is no remains pf clothing suggesting they were killed elsewhere but a life size dog made from terracotta, a dish with coins which help dates the burial and a jug. The greater part of the books is concerned in unravelling the mystery of who the young people are, why they died and came to be entombed in this manner.

He is able to follow what today we would call a cold case because he has a near death experience when those who assassinated the former underboss attempts to kill him and successfully kill his childhood friend Gege. He visits the mother and sister of the dead man to express his sorrow at the loss of his friend and who also provided him with good intelligence over many years.

While recuperating and resisting efforts of his superiors to promote him Montalbano slowly unravels the mystery. First with the help of the wife of man consulted he learns who the girl was said at the time to have run off with a soldier to the USA but this is proved to be a fiction. The girl’s boyfriend was a Muslim who worked from a ship based in the local docks repairing other ships. Montalbano also finds that two historical stories, one Muslim and one Christian were fused to create the scene found in the second cave and where the key aspect is a reawakening.

It also begins to look as if the truth will never be established until he has one of his brainwaves and with the help of the Swedish wife mentioned in The Shape in the Water he used some promised bonus money to hire a plane to make a statement about the young lovers at an event attended by a lot of people and the media and which then gets reported throughout Italy. This he hopes will bring the individual he suspects of having carried out the murder back to Sicily, in part because money allocated to compulsory purchase his land because of a new motorway tunnel lies in a bank waiting to be claimed or until it is established there is no one entitled.

The story the man tells is not what Montalbano expects. The young girl had met the boyfriend in secret because her father was not just possessive but coveted and eventually raped her. I cannot remember if it was girl or the boyfriend who had shot and wounded the father but it was one of the henchmen who carried out the murder of the couple while they were making love. I also cannot remember who the relative had also killed and led him to become an exile for the subsequent years living under a different life with a family. Montalbano in a fashion we are to learn he uses regularly decides to let sleeping dogs lie!!!!

As is the case with most of the books there are two main stories and sometimes there are unrelated. In this instance Mimi, his deputy investigates an unusual theft at a local supermarket because a vehicle with all the stolen goods is then found. Interrogation of the Supermarket manager also raises suspicions especially when a passing witness is also murdered to look like an accident but has taken the precaution of writing down his concerns and passing these in mailed letter to the Inspector. It is subsequently shown that the owner of the company supply the supermarket, a front for the Mafia was responsible for the attack on Montalbano and the killing of his friend but all in vain because the Mafia associates had also arranged for the termination of the colleague attracting too much interest by the authorities in their activities. Why the supermarket was robbed as part of the delivery of the weapons is also explained but do we remember or care?

A feature of the book is the attention given by the author to the food of Sicily and the attention given by the Inspector to his food which he likes to enjoy in silence even when he has company. Consideration of the present day meals cooked in Sicily suggests that Montalbano while appearing to be fixed on fish and pasta combinations chooses food from the all aspect of Sicilian culinary life with along the Catania coast with its Greek influence emphasis on fish ( sea bream and bass, tuna, cuttlefish and swordfish), olives and fresh vegetables such as egg plants, peppers and tomatoes while Arabia provides the use of lemons and other citrus fruits. A more detailed re-examination of The Terracotta Dog especially the notes at the back explains that calia e simenza is a mix of roasted chic peas and pumpkin seeds sometimes with peanuts added, an Arabic influenced dish; the Pasta ‘nastciata is a casserole of elbow(?) macaroni, penne, ziti, tomato sauce and mince beef with Parmesan cheese and béchamel blended. Mensa is a calf’s spleen, sliced into thin strips land cooked in fat while fresh anchovies all agretto means cooked in a sauce made with lemon juice. Pasta al forno in a casserole which can be made with meat, eggs, tomato or cream sauces; and pasta con sarde is broad spaghetti like rings with a sauce of fresh sardines and the tops of wild fennel, pine nuts, raisins, garlic and saffron while the second dish on the menu purpi ala carrettera is octopus served in a sauce of olive oil lemon and a great deal of hot pepper. There is also reference to tabesea pizza (?) and to mostacciola( small sweet cakes of chocolate, almonds and candid fruits) where I can read my handwriting while others notes remain indecipherable written in bed the early of the night or dawn! Not sure I would like to try some of the dishes. More a salami with French bread and olives man, me.

The Storm of Swords, the conclusion

The third season of the TV production of a Game of Thrones ends on a positive note after the shock of the murders of King Robb Stark, his mother and closest guardsmen, wedding guests at the House of Frey but we know that Bran Stark the legitimate heir to the estate of Winterfell is alive and on his quest to find the three eyed Crow which is bringing him insight into the future in his visions.

His younger brother Rickon was last reported alive having gone his separate way with his guardians and did not feature in the series or indeed in volumes three and four of George R R Martin‘s epic. The youngest daughter Ayra had also survived from being held at the Court of King Joffrey after the murder of King Robert and her father Lord Stark, and had also survived various challenges along the road in her attempt to find her family and get home.

So to had survived the half brother John Snow who has returned to the headquarters of the Nights Watch, Castle Black and according to the rest of a Storm of Swords, Blood and Gold, Jon is elected the new Commander of the Watch as a compromise candidate, engineered by King Stannis who had rescued the Watch from the attack of the Wildlings and manipulated the main contenders with the help of Samwell Tarly who Jon had befriended and defended. Jon had been declared the legitimate heir by King Robb having believed that his younger bothers had been murdered.

There was one significant development in the fourth book

not included in the third series. Catelyn Stark, despite her throat cut and unable to speak because of the wound was nevertheless alive after a fashion and taking command of the Brotherhood Without Banners hell bent on revenge on those who had destroyed her family.

Catelyn had ordered her guardswoman the Lady Brienne, formerly, the guardswoman to King Renly Baratheon, the younger brother of Stannis Baratheon to take the captured Jaime Lannister, the twin of Queen Cersie and in fact the father of her three children registered as those of the murdered King Robert, including her eldest boy the evil adolescent Joffrey. Lady Brienne had been instructed to return Jamie to his family in exchange for her two daughters Sansa and Ayra, unaware that Ayra had broken free and was in the road in search of her. During the two books of A Storm of Swords, Lady Brienne had first to contend with the arrogant and uncooperative Jaime although he had been right to argue that had she untied his hands and given a sword they would not have been captured.

After their capture Jaime had his right hand severed and survived just about, full of self pity at his plight but growing in admiration of Brienne for her grit and fighting skill as well as determination to keep her word and fulfil her mission. He has consequently saved her from rape and then death in a bear pit and together they had return to his family where he found an unexpected situation and had to struggle to protect Brienne who was incarcerated. He returns to his role in he Kingsguard.

However I want to tell the rest of the story of the Lannisters through the position of the elder daughter of Lord and Lady Stark, Sansa. One sources summarises Sansa, who is only 11 when the series commence, as possessing as interest in “music, poetry, singing, dancing, embroidery, and other traditional feminine activities. Like many girls of her age, Sansa is enthralled by songs and stories of romance and adventure, particularly those depicting handsome princes, honourable knights, chivalry, and love. Initially those song and stories were Sansa's vision of the world beyond Winterfell, a world she desperately wished to experience, but she was later disabused of such innocent romanticized notions.”

Because of her outlook on life she jumped at the chance of being betrothed to Joffrey when King Robert visited Winterfell and she revelled in the prospect of one day becoming a Queen and she sided with Joffrey over his behaviour on the journey to Kings Landing which led to the killing of her Direwolf instead of that belonging to sister Ayra who sent hers off beforehand anticipating what was to happen with its fate has remaining unknown throughout the subsequent three books.

Sansa’s ambitions and girlish fantasies also contribute to the imprisonment and death of her father something which has not appeared to haunt her subsequently. When Lord Stark discovers after the death of King Robert that Joffrey is not his child he tells Sansa they are returning home and failing to persuade him to let her stay and marry Joffrey, she disclosed his intention to leave which led to his imprisonment and death.

She then had to witness the execution of her father as a traitor and to beatings at the hands of his men and narrowly escaped being raped at he hands of he mob. She is befriended by the keeper of the royal purse Lord Petyr Baelish, Known as Littlefinger, a nasty man despite his niceness with sneaky being another word to describe his machinations. Petyr had a relationship with Catelyn Stark who rejected his advance and drunk one night slept with her sister making her pregnant but because of his lowly birth the marriage was not sanctioned and the pregnancy terminated. She married the man who became the Hand to King Robert and who in turn was murdered after he gained proof that the three children of Queen Cersei was those of her twin brother and not her husband. It is Petyr who persuades the widow to write to her sister with the suspicions about his death. She lingers hope of establishing the relationships she wanted all those years before but Petyr only interest is his advancement and the coveting of Sansa who reminds him of her mother when she too was a girl. To provide something of the true nature of this wicked man he supported King Robert in the assassination attempt made of Daenerys Targaryen and he also betrayed Lord Stark, taking the side of the Queen which led to the capture of Sansa’s father.

In A Clash of Kings the machinations of Petyr are grasped by Tyrion Lannister who is appointed by his father as the hand of King Joffrey and he tries to use Petyr and Petyr tries to use him. It is Petyr who brokers the alliance between the Lannisters and Tyrell’s to get their forces to fight alongside by arranging a marriage between Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell setting aside that with Sansa. He lets Sansa know that he will arrange her escape from Kings Landing after the battle to save the city. However his motives are suspect.

As previously reported it was the ingenuity of Tyrion Lannister that saved the city and its Court by destroying the sea attack of Stannis Baratheon and then with the land forces of the Tyrell’s defeating the attack on land. He was badly wounded and disfigured but from the anger and envy of his sister the Queen, especially after he had arranged for the departure of her daughter as betrothed and then ward of another house and as she feared he was making moves to reduce her power further and control her son, the King.

However they had both been out manoeuvred by their father Lord Tywin who effectively sidelined Tyrion and worse demanded he had no contact with the love of his life the whore Shea, threatening her execution. After his recovery he had made Tyrion the Keeper of the Kings Coin with Petyr Baelish having been rewarded with the Lordship of Herrenhal, although the castle and estate was still in the hands of Roose Bolton.

Tyrion as previously reported has remained something of anti hero of series with the actor winning a number of awards and nominations and the character and the position of the character and the reputation fo the actor has been throughout the third season.

He confronts his rejecting father who declares that the man should be grateful that he did not follow his inclination and end his life at birth, putting the family interest first something which he argues Tyrion should now do so. He appoints Tyrion as Keeper of the Coin something which he applies himself quickly discovering the true nature of the finances and the way the crown is beholden and in debt to a wide range of interests.

However it is his father’s second order which throws Tyrion and causes Sansa the greatest of disappointments. When the season opened the grandmother of Joffrey’s new betrothed, Oleanna Tyrell nee Redwyne played by Honor Blackman, arrives at Kings Landing as part of the wedding party and invites Sansa to a meal at which she questions the girl about the personality and behaviour of the King in the presence of the future Queen, Margaery, the recently widowed wife of King Renly Baratheon, the brother of the murdered King Robert Baratheon and the legal father of Joffrey, the product of the incestuous union between Queen Cersei and her twin brother Jamie Lannister.

Lady Oleanna is known as the Queen of Thorns because of her barbed tongue, persuades Sansa to tell the truth and rewards the girl by suggesting that she marries one of the brothers of Margaery and lives with grandmother at the family home of Highgarden. This pleases Sansa who become a close friend of Margaery as they takes walks in the garden and share confidences and she abandon her desire to take up the offer of Littlefinger to escape from the court and make her way to her mother.

It is at this point that Tywin Lannisters intervened and orders his son Tyrion to marry Sansa as he also orders Cersei to make a new marriage of convenience.

Tyrion is opposed to this development but eventually goes along with the order and the two marry although the marriage is not consummated, as he is unwilling to force Sansa and hoping that she will develop feelings for him in time. The two make ready for the great wedding of Joffrey to Margaery at which there is to be over 100 courses at the banquet and where Tyrion’s wench, Shea had pleaded with him to get her into the main feast so she could admire the finery as well as witness and participate the great meal and accompanying events. However there is an event which is to shake the already crumbling foundations of the state even further as Joffrey dies, appearing to choke although through the administration of some poison. Given the enormity of this development I was not surprised it was left from season three of the TV series to create a major event in season four.

The TV season has also omitted an important scene in which Tywin Lannister exerts his authority over his grandson, King Joffrey ordering him to bed and to be given dreamwine to calm him down. The row is mainly between Joffrey and Tyrion who Joffrey goes out of his way to humiliate at the wedding. Because of this and the previous attempt by Queen Cersei to murder Tyrion it is not surprising that that she argues that Tyrion must have been responsible for the death of her eldest boy, and Tyrion is arrested and put on trial with many witnesses brought against him, including his wench. Things look very black.

It is at this point Littlefinger steps in and rescues Sansa on one of his ships taking her to the home of mother’s sister who is thrilled to provide sanctuary on the basis that this paves the way for her and Littlefinger to be together at long last.

Meanwhile as mentioned earlier the crippled Jamie Lannister has been returned home and in the TV series we see him meeting with Cersei. What is therefore not appreciated is that in fact this event occurs after the death of Joffrey when Cersei is in rage and mourning. She is in no mood to have the kind of open relationship with her twin brother he now wants. He returns to the Kingsguard having also fallen out of favour with his father and it is Jamie who arranges for Tyrion to escape the sentence of death by the court.

Lord Tywin refuses to let the death of the horrible spoilt and sadistic brat Joffrey upset his plans and decides that the younger brother Tommen, also as said the product of the union between Cersie and her brother should not only be crowned king but marry the already twice widowed Queen Margaery.

I must confess to be confused whether it was Littlefinger or Tyrion who murdered Joffrey with the unwitting help of Sansa or if indeed Tyrion arranged for Littlefinger to organise the murder. However Littlefinger’s plans to have Sansa for himself go awry and Catelyn sisters turns on the girl recognising the intentions and also perishes. For the wedding Sansa had been asked to wear a special jewel encrusted hair net which during the feast was rearranged by Lady Oleanna and Littlefinger tells Sansa that he had planted the concerns about Joffrey with Oleanna when he had arranged the marriage as requested by Tyrion and that Oleanna had a removed a particular jewel which dissolved in wine to form the deadly poison and therefore the Oleanna had been the one to kill Joffrey. She wanted to protect her daughter from the King’s sadism and feared that her son appointed to the Kingsguard would become vulnerable wanting to intervene when witnessing the King’s behaviour towards his sister.

Given that Margaery had drunk from the wine goblet placed before her and the king, the implication is that she knew of the plan to kill her husband and stopped drinking the moment she saw her grandmother rearrange the hair of Sansa

It can then be argued that she and Oleanna were in favour of the marriage between her granddaughter and the new boy king who appeared a very different young personality and indeed Jaime as head of the Kingsguard was keen to protect the new King in a way he did not feel as strongly regarding his older son

So how did I come to believe that Tyrion Lannister had admitted responsibility for the death of his nephew? Well he did but this was only to hurt his brother Jamie. Tyrion had loved and married Tysha a young woman he had met when he with his brother Jamie and found her on the road accosted by some men. She was aged thirteen years at the time.

When Lord Tywin heard about the marriage he persuaded Jamie to tell his brother that the girl was a known young prostitute and to reinforce the allegation the point Lord Tywin had insisted that the girl be used by men fo the Kingsguard who each paid her with a silver coin he had provided and then he had forced Tyrion to be the last man and to pay the girl with a gold coin of the same worth Jamie claimed that their father had given the girl to make a man of Tyrion after the staged event on the road.

Jaime reveals this to Tyrion as the reason why with the help of a reluctant Lord Varys he had arranged for his brother to escape : guilt and which in turn led Tyrion to say that he had killed Joffrey and that he would kill Jamie when they next meet. Tyrion then makes his way to his father’s bedchamber where he find that Shae in his father’s bed. He strangles her for the evidence she game against him at his trial and then murders his father after the man said he could not remember what happened to Tysha except that she went where whores go. Queen mother Cersie offers to make anyone a Lord who kills Tyrion.

Meanwhile back at the home of the Tully’s, Catelyn’s sister had seen Littlefinger steal a kiss from Sansa noting that she had come to look so much like the love of his life. This prompted the surviving sister to try and kill Sansa, but instead Petyr kills the woman leaving the Sansa in his power and with her mother believed dead along with now her two aunts and her brothers. In fact as we know half brother Jon is now commander of the Nights Watch. Brother Brandon is on his quest for the crow with three eyes. Younger brother Rickon is elsewhere while sister Ayra is taking passage. Her mother, perhaps one of the undead, is leading a band of rebels and in fact only her father and eldest brother are dead. It is also presumed that Lord Baelish, Cersei, Tyrion, King Stannis, Oleanna, the Mother of the Dragons Daenerys Targaryen and indeed Ayra, Bran, Rickon, Catelyn, and Jon only know of their position as the others who have been covered in a Storm of Swords. The Epic continues.