A voice in the night

When Guido Borsellino, the manager of a supermarket in Vigata, Sicily, is found hanging in his office shortly after the market was robbed, suicide is the natural conclusion. Borsellino, it's assumed, was the inside man in the robbery. Inspector Montalbano, in his well-established Columbo manner, sees some troubling inconsistencies and starts digging into the case. What he finds won't come as a surprise to devotees of this long-running series (this is the twentieth installment to appear in the U.S.). Of course, there's more to the robbery than first appears, and, of course, there's corruption in high places both criminal and governmental (but, as Camilleri keeps reminding us, there is little difference in the two). Increasingly, Montalbano's adventures are reading like battles of the bumblers: the bureaucrat bumblers, the Mafia bumblers, and even Montalbano himself, whose growing frustration with both bureaucrats and Mafioso leads to more than a little frenzied bumbling of his own. The opera buffa tone of this series plays effectively against the bursts of senseless violence, reminding us that bumbling in Sicily is a contact sport. Thankfully, Montalbano always has the prospect of his next meal to keep him sane.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2016 Booklist

The case at the heart of bestseller Camilleri's sardonic 20th mystery featuring Sicily's Insp. Salvo Montalbano (after 2015's A Beam of Light) starts innocuously with the report of a supermarket burglary. But since locals know that the enterprise is owned by the Cuffaro family, it's clear that something else is going on-and, sure enough, within hours there's a related suicide of the supermarket's manager, previously accountant for several Cuffaro businesses, which probably isn't a suicide at all. As if pressure from the commissioner over Montalbano's handling of the probe weren't headache enough, a night watchman who may have seen too much vanishes. Like some of the Sicilian delicacies that provide the inspector a brief respite from his labors, Camilleri's mix of the harrowing and the humorous is at times an acquired taste-particularly Montalbano's language-butchering assistant Catarella ("I beck yer partin' for distrubbin' yiz!"), who could have stepped straight out of a Marx Brothers movie. Agent: Donatella Barbieri, Agenzia Letteraria Internazionale (Italy). (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

When the distressed manager of a robbed supermarket winds up dead after being questioned, a seasoned investigator and his team are quick to discover that this crime has many layers.Inspector Montalbano is celebrating his 58th birthday at the start of this 20th installment (A Beam of Light, 2015, etc.), though he's easily distracted from it thanks to an insatiable appetite, an encounter with an enraged driver, and a robbery call from store manager Borsellino, who curiously seems more upset at the police than about the money stolen overnight. When Montalbano arrives at the market to help out officers Augello and Fazio, he finds a man so terrified of the polices inquiries that he believes you want to see me sentenced to death! But Montalbano cant deny that the lack of forced entry seems suspicious. Was Borsellino aware of plans for the robbery? Its no secret that this businessalong with many of the businesses in Sicilys Piano Lanternaare owned by a powerful Mafia family, the Cuffaros. With their initial questioning complete, Montalbano returns with his officers to the station in Vigta, where he has another matter to deal with: the enraged driver from earlier, Giovanni Strangio, whom he had arrested, has turned out to be the son of the province president. Montalbano knows better than most that the interests of local politicians and the Mafia are steadily aligned; the hoops hell have to jump through to get anything done in either case are not lost on him. But frustrations turn deadly serious when Borsellino is found hanged in his office that same evening. Montalbano has barely digested another helping of birthday octopus when Strangio is back in his presencecalm this timein order to report the violent murder of his live-in girlfriend, Mariangela. Both deaths raise red flags, and Montalbano must resort to late-night sleuthing to catch suspected killers when they least expect it. And while this tale may have overarching themes, the small clues and revelations are what make it special. Camilleris trusty inspector keeps things lighthearted while catching powerful men with their pants down; you can trust in his razor-sharp investigative mind even as basic skills amusingly escape him. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.