Shape of Water (Montalbano 1) [Paperback]

Andrea Camilleri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 6, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0330492861 | ISBN-13: 978-0330492867

The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano, as honest as he is streetwise and as scathing to fools and villains as he is compassionate to their victims, is not ready to close the case - even though he's being pressured by Vigata's police chief, judge, and bishop. Picking his way through a labyrinth of high-comedy corruption, delicious meals, vendetta firepower, and carefully planted false clues, Montalbano can be relied on, whatever the cost, to get to the heart of the matter.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Urbane Sicilian police inspector Salvo Montalbano, whose exploits have sold more than four million copies in Europe, makes his long overdue U.S. debut in this spare and spry English translation of the first novel in the series. When two garbage collectors find the body of local politician Silvio Luparello locked in his BMW with his pants down, in "the Pasture," the Vig…ta town dump frequented by whores and drug dealers, the coroner rules that Luparello died of natural causes, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Montalbano refuses to oblige his superiors who want a hasty close to the case, and it will take a corrupt lawyer's murder to break it open. The author's view of Sicily is the all-too-common one of a poor and backward place that many would like to see separated from the rest of Italy. Camilleri's strength lies in his gallery of eccentric characters: Signora Luparello, the victim's admirably cool widow; GegŠ, a pimp and old classmate of Montalbano's; Giosue Contino, an 82-year-old schoolteacher who shoots at people because he thinks his 80-year-old wife is cheating on him; and Anna Ferrara, Montalbano's attractive deputy, "who every now and then, for whatever reason, would try to seduce him." Even the two garbage men have Ph.D.s. The maverick Montalbano doesn't hesitate to destroy clues or extract money from a crook to help a child, but his wrapping up the case by telling rather than showing, while acceptable to European audiences, may disappoint action-oriented American fans.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, making a belated first appearance in the U.S., has long been a staple of both Italian and German best-seller lists. It's easy to see why: Camilleri captures that special blend of lethargy, cynicism, and reluctant commitment that drives the best fictional Italian cops (e.g., Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen). Salvo Montalbano, police inspector in the small Sicilian town of Vigata, has a potentially explosive case on his plate: a local politician has been found dead in his car, apparently the victim of a heart attack. The position of the politician's pants (around his ankles) and the location of the car (parked in an abandoned field where prostitutes ply their trade) suggest that the victim may have died in flagrante delicto. Higher-ups want the embarrassing case closed quickly, but Montalbano smells a setup. Unlike many European cops dealing with the horrors of modernity, Montalbano is no melancholic brooder; rather, he puts a comic face on the noir world, sorting through multiple layers of corruption Sicilian style while still finding time to enjoy a good lunch. Keep the translations coming--and quickly. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Picador (February 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330492861
• ISBN-13: 978-0330492867
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrea Camilleri is the author of the spectacularly successful Montalbano mystery series and many other novels set in nineteenth-century Sicily. His Montalbano novels have been made into an Italian TV series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A refreshing change, March 14, 2004

By 

gotta run now (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Shape of Water (Mass Market Paperback)

Andrea Camilleri's "The Shape of Water" is the first in a series of Inspector Montalbano mysteries, only recently translated to English. I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by interesting characters, a mystery I didn't figure out in advance, and a protaganist with many layers, who is serious, intelligent, self-depracating, and quite funny!
The story begins with the discovery by 2 garbagemen of a local politician, dead in a car, with his pants around his ankles. Detective work in Sicily is quite different than what you would expect in the US. But Inspector Montalbano performs his job largely independent of supervision and is fairly free to follow up in whatever way he pleases.
The pace is relaxed, and the book does not have your typical action-adventure style. Everything is revealed in a very matter of fact style in a storytelling manner, rather than one action scene to the next. Not to worry though, there are plenty of questions to be answered here, and Montalbano gets to them in his own good time. He manages to fit in a love interest, and some fantastic gourmet food as he goes about his days. His gastronomic interests are amusing in themselves.
I don't want to go on about the story itself here, it might spoil the surprises for the readers. Suffice to say this was a very enjoyable read, with plenty of plot twists, that will make you want to read the rest of the series. Highly recommended to mystery lovers.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars RELAX, DONT DO IT, IF YOU WANT TO SHOOT IT, July 19, 2003

By 

Sesho "www.sesho.libsyn.com" (Pasadena, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Shape of Water (Mass Market Paperback)

In the American detective novel such as the Maltese Falcon oftentimes the hero is just as bad as the thugs he fights against and resorts to what we would call evil to achieve his ends. In The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri we have an altogether different animal. While retaining some of the facets of the hardboiled crime novel, it also lightens the atmosphere and incredibly features an honest and moral man as its protaganist.

Salvo Montalbano, the police inspector for the small Sicilian town of Vigata, is deeply respected by his community for his honesty and fairness. That is doubly important since there is corruption in all levels of the Italian government. He is very likable. He doesn't cheat on his girlfriend, he does good deeds, and he's also pretty intelligent, sometimes even discussing literature with other officers in the know. Not exactly the cold-blooded killer we see in America. What a breath of freshness this is!

Hold on, dont think that this is some nice cub scout book to be read to children. As the novel opens, two garbagemen find the body of Silvio Lupanello, chief political figure in Vigata. They find him dead in a car in the Pasture, a local name for an area known for its drug and prostitution activity. One of them finds a valuable necklace on the ground and conceals it from the police.

Salvo is called in to investigate the scene. I hesitate to say crime scene because it is not known whether any crime has been comitted. The rumors begin to spread that it was foul play. The problem for the inspector is that he wants to know the truth, wherever it leads him. Even it ends up sullying the plans of the political elite.

This was a good book. It was so refreshing to get a new perspective on a detective novel. I'm not alone because this series is a best-seller in many countries. It was originally published in Italy almost 10 years ago and has just now made it to English. I liked the fact that we had a traditional hero in the novel. I mean, American writers really blur the lines between good and evil most of the time. That's not to say there are no twists and turns in this novel. Camilleri seems to be in complete control of writing a novel that can be tough and yet gentle at the same time. The characters were great. The setting really invoked the country. The only thing that I can complain about was that maybe the novel moved too fast. You never have time to slow down. It seems like more of a cinematic experience. Maybe that will be remedied in the second novel. If you like detective stories with a refreshing change, seek this book out.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sharp, fresh and funny., January 30, 2004

By 

L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Shape of Water (Mass Market Paperback)

In a grotesque death, Sicilian politician and wealthy engineer Silvio Luparello, is found in a remote "pasture", or the equivalent of a lonely stretch of land where prostitutes ply their trade in their clients' cars. Garbagemen find the car, and the body, with its pants around its knees, and we are immediately struck by how much effort is expended to downplay the incident and cover up the cause of death.

Into this mess comes well-respected middle-aged Inspector Salvo Montalbano, a life-long resident of the fictional Sicilian coastal town of Vigata. The novel follows Montalbano's clever and well-manuevered search for the truth; letting the reader meet local politicians, Montalbano's friends and colleagues, the family of the dead man, and a mysterious and roundheeled woman who races cars for a living, and is somehow entangled in Luparello's death. In a sidebar, Montalbano also makes the acquaintance of the garbagemen, and learns of a serious healthcare crisis with the child of one of them.

As he researches the case, Montalbano breaks a lot of rules, but delicately, becomes chagrined over the affections of a young police officer (the daughter of his old friend), makes time to woo his own love, Livia, in Genoa, and flies under the radar of town leaders, religious leaders and his superior officers, all of whom want him to close the case quickly, and admit that Luparello dies of natural causes.

The reader develops an appreciation for Montalbano's subtlety, and his art in acquiring delicious food from friends, restaurants, and his own kitchen...Montalbano loves a good meal. The cynicism and humor are subtle here, poking gentle fun at Sicilian political customs, such as a killing where everyone hopes the death was a Mafia hit, so that they don't have to search for the real cause.

I'm recommending this book wholeheartedly. I've read so much that's good about the work of author Andrea Camilleri (a citizen of Rome, now age "70 ", author of screenplays for Italian television, producer and director for TV and the theater, and award-winning novelist and short story writer) that it was inevitable that I would find the time to start his "Inspector Montalbano" series with "A Shape of Water". I must admit I'm puzzled as to how the title ties into the story, but know this -- I probably won't stop until I've read them all.

At this point, 4 of the 7 novels have been translated into English. First published in 1994, this novel has been translated into 8 languages, and began to circulate in English in 2002. The translator, American Stephen Sartarelli, does a fine job, and, although there is a breakdown from time to time in sentence structure, Sartarelli provides three dozen notes in the back of the book, to help Americans understand Sicilian customs and culture. This goes a long way to breaking down the barriers to the book.

Having not yet read the remaining books, I believe that they probably succeed in developing tighter story lines, and allowing us to build on Montalbano's quaint idiosyncracies. Hopefully, they'll include more of his childhood friend, Gege, who is now Vigata's leading pimp... "Salvo and Gege were listless schoolboys, learning their lessons like parrots".....(now as adults)..Gege: "And I tell you in my own interest. Because for a big cheese like Luparello to come and croak at the Pasture, isn't good for business....Can I go now? These are peak hours at the Pasture."

One word of note, this work, and probably that of the following novels, is graphic in the use of foul language and sexual situations. If this bothers you, you're not going to want to read on.