The Terracotta Dog – Andrea Camilleri

Published in 1996, this is the second of Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano books. The edition I read had been translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli and it read well. I’m always skeptical as to how faithful translators are to the original but this has enough stylistic quirks and pace to suggest that it is close enough.

The most irksome thing about the book is that every now and again we are told precisely what it is that Montalbano is having to eat. I suppose in a way it gives local Sicilian colour, assuming what he is eating is a speciality of the island or, perhaps it is to give the impression that he is a northern boor, not from those parts, as they are not Sicilian dishes. Who knows and who cares? When I’m reading a detective novel, I want to be entertained, not fight my way through a restaurant menu.

What intrigues me about Montalbano is that he is another detective, Holmes and Maigret are to the forefront, who place their trust in natural rather than legal justice. It is enough for them to unmask the culprit and let the malefactor’s guilty conscience plague them to the end of their days. It is an interesting approach and would certainly reduce the prison population, if adopted in earnest, although there may be a corresponding increase in depressives. It is the route to which they get to the truth rather than the judicial consequences of the crime which are of interest to both the writer and the reader.

Montalbano’s methods are unorthodox. He keeps close contact with the criminal fraternity and often his breaks come from tip-offs from them. But what he is able to do is make sense of what seem at first sight to be random, disparate events. If nothing else the Terracotta Dog is a case in point. It starts off with a Mr Big in the Mafia world, high up on the most wanted list, Tano the Greek, sends word to Montalbano that he wants to give himself up but only to Montalbano. A dramatic raid is staged and Tano’s arrest is a major feather in Montalbano’s cap, so much so that he is threatened with promotion, something the Inspector is keen to avoid at all costs.

During the raid they find a hiding place in a cave with a large cache of armaments. Around the same time a local supermarket is robbed in circumstances which make no sense. Montalbano won’t let it go and his investigations lead him back to the cave again, where there is a second chamber which contains the bodies of a young couple and various artefacts, including a terracotta dog.

Perhaps the highlight of the book is the Inspector’s encounter with an eccentric, reclusive former priest, Alcide Maraventano. It is through him that Montalbano realizes that the murderer of the young couple really wanted to be discovered and to atone for his misdeeds. In a convoluted and, it has to be said, slightly strained way there is a link between all these disparate parts.

Although the plotting is not convincing enough to make this a classic, there is enough to keep the reader interested. The characteristics of Montalbano’s colleagues become clearer, they are generally incompetent and liable to give the game way, the knowledge of which suits the Inspector as he prefers to operate on his own. His relationship with Livia, his on-off girlfriend living in the north, is as strained as ever and the Swedish woman, Ingrid, whom we met in the Shape of Water crops up again to lend a hand.

Camilleri’s style is light and he writes with wit, some of the scenes in danger of descending into farce. On the whole, I enjoyed the book. I just wish he would tone down the food.