A Voice in the Night (Inspector Montalbano Series #20)

by Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli (Translator)

Overview

“You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen. Aglow with local color, packed with flint-dry wit, as fresh and clean as Mediterranean seafood — altogether transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano.” A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

Montalbano investigates a robbery at a supermarket, a standard case that takes a spin when manager Guido Borsellino is later found hanging in his office. Was it a suicide? The inspector and the coroner have their doubts, and further investigation leads to the director of a powerful local company.

Meanwhile, a girl is found brutally murdered in Giovanni Strangio’s apartment—Giovanni has a flawless alibi, and it’s no coincidence that Michele Strangio, president of the province, is his father. Weaving together these two crimes, Montalbano realizes that he’s in a difficult spot where political power is enmeshed with the mafia underworld.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143126447
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/15/2016
Series:	Inspector Montalbano Series , #20
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	236,525
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Andrea Camilleri is the bestselling author of the popular Inspector Montalbano mystery series, as well as historical novels that take place in nineteenth-century Sicily. He lives in Rome.

Stephen Sartarelli (translator) is an award-winning translator and poet. He lives in France.

Editorial Reviews

09/05/2016
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.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano Series

“The idiosyncratic Montalbano is totally endearing.”—The New York Times
 
“Camilleri is as crafty and charming a writer as his protagonist is an investigator.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Hailing from the land of Umberto Eco and La Cosa Nostra, Montalbano can discuss a pointy-headed book like Western Attitudes Toward Death as unflinchingly as he can pore over crime-scene snuff photos. He throws together an extemporaneous lunch of shrimp with lemon and oil as gracefully as he dodges advances from attractive women.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Camilleri’s mysteries] offer quirky characters, crisp dialogue, bright storytelling—and Salvo Montalbano, one of the most engaging protagonists in detective fiction…Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Siciliy’s mean streets.”—USA Today

“Camilleri is as crafty and charming a writer as his protagonist is an investigator.”—The Washington Post Book World

“Like Mike Hammer or Sam Spade, Montalbano is the kind of guy who can’t stay out of trouble…Still, deftly and lovingly translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Camilleri makes it abundantly clear that under the gruff, sardonic exterior our inspector has a heart of gold, and that any outburst, fumbles, or threats are made only in the name of pursuing truth.”—The Nation

“Camilleri can do a character’s whole backstory in half a paragraph.”—The New Yorker

“Subtle, sardonic, and molto simpatico: Montalbano is the Latin re-creation of Philip Marlowe, working in a place that manages to be both more and less civilized than chandler’ Los Angeles.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“The novels of Andrea Camilleri breathe out the sense of place, the sense of humor, and the sense of despair that fills the air of Sicily."—Donna Leon


 

From the Publisher

06/01/2016
After a robbery, the manager of a supermarket is found hanging in his office (and the hanging doesn't look voluntary), while a girl lies murdered in the apartment of a political bigwig's son. Of course, feisty Sicilian inspector Montalbano will discover how these two cases relate. Twentieth in a series (following A Beam of Light) whose titles have had occasion to hit the New York Times best sellers list; 2012's The Potter's Field won the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger Award.

Library Journal

2016-08-16
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 police’s inquiries that he believes “you want to see me sentenced to death!” But Montalbano can’t deny that the lack of forced entry seems suspicious. Was Borsellino aware of plans for the robbery? It’s no secret that this business—along with many of the businesses in Sicily’s Piano Lanterna—is owned by a powerful Mafia family, the Cuffaros. With their initial questioning complete, Montalbano returns with his officers to the station in Vigàta, 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 he’ll 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 presence—calm this time—in 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. Camilleri’s 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.

Kirkus Reviews