Book description
Maybe a phrase, a line, a hint somewhere would reveal a reason, any
reason, for the elderly couple’s disappearance. They’d saved
everything . . . there was even a copy of the ‘certificate of living
existence’, that nadir of bureaucratic imbecility . . . What was the
‘protocol’, to use a word dear to government offices? Did one simply
write on a sheet of paper something like: ‘I, the undersigned, Salvo
Montalbano, hereby declare myself to be in existence’, sign it, and
turn it in to the appointed clerk?
A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building
early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an
excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases
for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life
at Vigàta police headquarters.
But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young
man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's
brutal ‘New Mafia’, which leads him down a path more evil and more
far-reaching than any he has been down before.
Praise for Andrea Camilleri:
‘A joy to read’ The Times
‘This savagely funny police procedural proves that sardonic laughter is
a sound that translates ever so smoothly into English’ New York Times
Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy’s most famous contemporary writers.
The Montalbano mystery series has been translated into nine languages
and the novels have been bestsellers all over Europe. EXCURSION TO
TINDARI is the fifth in the series. The author lives in Rome.
Stephen Sartarelli is a poet and translator. He lives in France.
