Product Description

Montalbano quickly slammed the trunk shut and sat down on top of it. When the beam from Livia’s torch shone on his face, he automatically smiled.

‘What’s in the trunk?’ Livia asked.

‘Nothing. It’s empty.’

How could he possibly have told her there was a corpse inside?

The lazy, slow month of August at the height of the Sicilian summer is, Montalbano assures his girlfriend Livia as they prepare for a relaxing holiday in a villa he has found for them, far too hot for any murders to be committed. But when Livia's friends’ young son goes missing, a chain of events is sparked which will certainly ruin the Chief Inspector’s pleasant interlude.

A secret apartment and a grisly find in an old trunk are just the beginning, as Montalbano navigates his way though the case, as well as coping with the sweltering heat, the suspicious death of an Arab labourer and the tempting lure of a beautiful girl . . .

‘A magnificent series of novels’ Sunday Times

‘Wonderful Italian detective stories’ Guardian

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5614 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As the interest of readers in crime fiction in translation continues to grow, it’s common knowledge that one writer's name guarantees highly individual writing: the veteran Italian master Andrea Camilleri. And August Heat demonstrates once again why the author is held in such high esteem -- and why Inspector Montalbano is one of the treasures of the current crime scene. This latest offering (with Montalbano dealing with the discovery of a young woman’s body) is par for the course – not vintage Montalbano, but more than serviceable -- aided by a translation courtesy of the adroit Stephen Sartarelli.

As usual with Montalbano (whose gourmet instincts are as keen as his investigative skills), his methods for learning the truth from suspects vary according to the individuals he is dealing with; here, an unpleasant paedophile comes in for some particularly no-nonsense treatment -- and the legality of some of Montalbano’s actions is distinctly questionable.

The setting, as usual, is the picturesque, non-metropolitan region of Vigata in Sicily. And it's hot --stiflingly hot. In August Heat, we are never allowed to forget the all-enveloping sultriness (the inspector -- possessor of miniature fan, the only one in the police station -- sometimes cloisters himself in his office and strips naked to deal with the heat). At the beginning of the novel, Montalbano’s lover, Livia, has arranged for some friends to stay near them. But their guests' irritating child disappears, and Montalbano undertakes a search. The house they are using yields no clues, despite being searched with a fine toothcomb. The mystery is total -- is it an abduction? Has the child wandered away? Until, that is, Montalbano finds a tunnel in the ground outside -- one that that takes him to a concealed layer of the house. He finds the child, unharmed, but there is another discovery waiting for him in the subterranean room: a trunk. Inside, wrapped in plastic, is the unclothed body of a girl -- her throat has been slashed. The clues to her killer may lie with those responsible for the concealed floor.

Camilleri fans will be more than happy with this, though there is no catch-up characterisation for Montalbano's police colleagues; the author clearly makes the assumption that we’ll be familiar with them. This reservation apart (plus a few others involving a comic secondary figure), followers of this urbane, relentless Italian copper need not hesitate. --Barry Forshaw

Review
'Camilleri underpins the story with caustic sideswipes...which always makes his books a cut above the average thriller.'
--Books Quarterly

Review
'The seal of the best foreign crime writing is as much the stylish prose as the unfamiliar settings. When both ingredients are presented with the expertise shown by Andrea Camilleri, the result is immensely satisfying.'


'An excellent series is a brilliant, blackly comic read with an all-too-human protagonist...Camilleri underpins the story with caustic sideswipes... A cut above the average thriller.'

Customer Reviews

Hot hot hot

When I first started reading the Camilleri books I was not impressed and found them a bit lightweight and the plots slightly on the vague side. I also did not take to Inspector Montalbano very much either and I put this series to one side thinking it was not for me. However, I picked up a paperback a year or so later in one of these cheapo book shops that suddenly sprout up in odd places and stay for six months and then vanish (amazing what gems you can unearth in these as well) and I thought I would give them another whirl. By this time I had discovered, loved and read the entire Donna Leon/Brunetti books set in Venice and I was in full Italian mode and eager to find more set in this country so took this one home and read it - and loved it. Suddenly the characters seemed to click and I found myself laughing at the back chat and insults between Salvo Montalbano and his colleagues, and the absurdities of the simply wonderful Catarella who answers the phone, is incredibly dim and can never enter a room without hurling himself in and crashing the door.

Over the last year I have read all of the Camilleri books and have become addicted. I don't think it is my imagination when I say that reading them all one after the other and in order, I note that they have become better plotted, more intricate and the characterization of Montalbano, his girlfriend Livia and the other members of the police station where he is based, have become deeper and the humour funnier. This latest one is terrific.

As the title suggests the time of this particular murder investigation is in August and the heat is unbearable. Livia and two of her friends, with their small son, hire a house on the beach and Salvo promises to spend time with them as there are never any murders in August. Famous last words when they discover another floor to the house which has a trunk in the corner, and in the trunk ... a body. Livia and her friends depart:

"Livia was spoiling for a fight. 'You're a man who doesn't keep his word' '

'Me?' '

'Yes, you'

'Would you mind telling me when I didn't keep my word?''

''You swore to me there were no murders in Vigita in the summer'

'How can you possibly make such a statement?....at the most I probably said that, with the summer heat, the people planning to kill someone decided to leave it to the autumn'....that murder dates from the month of October six years ago. October - did you get that? Which means, among other things, that my theory was not just hot air?'

Livia hung up"

This is one of the best Montalbano books yet and I finally had to finish it try as I might. Enhanced by the usual wonderful descriptions of food and wine, and the depiction of the intense heat beating down, the reader can really feel the debilitating, sweating exhaustion of Salvo as he struggles to track down the killer.

Great stuff.

Wonder when the next one is due?

Sicily's most famous detective feels the heat...
Camilleri's books about Sicilian detective Salvo Montalbano inevitably are compared with Donna Leon's stories about Venice's Brunetti, with Brunetti being the more cultured, better educated and more refined of the two. This also applies to the way the books are written Montalbano's more rough-and-ready, sometimes crude, but always big-hearted approach to crime solving seems to fit better with the fact that he's in Sicily and I have always enjoyed the descriptions of places, food and the sea that pepper the Montalbano books even if they aren't quite as beautifully-written or subtle as Leon's.

In this book, Montalbano discovers the body of a brutally-murdered young girl inside a trunk hidden in an illegal apartment in a building rented by friends for the summer. He, of course, solves the crime aided and abetted by a cast of characters who have featured in previous books and a beautiful and seductive young woman, who hasn't.

I enjoyed this book very much, it's a very easy read with a twist at the end, and I found Montalbano's reflections on ageing touching, but agree with previous readers that there isn't really much of a mystery - the culprit is flagged up very early on. And I would have given it four stars were it not for a huge implausibility that I won't mention because it will spoil the plot, but it annoyed me no end.

Very good book for easy summer beach-reading, especially if you're going to Sicily.

Another enjoyable Montalbano case
This is another very readable, enjoyable book in Camilleri's Montalbano series. All the things we have come to expect from previous books are there - the excellent sense of place, the world-weary cynicism about the corruption in the Italian system, the food (naturally), the rather clumsy comic turns by Catarella and so on. It moves at a good pace, the dialogue is snappy and I found myself keen to get back and read some more when I had the opportunity, which is always a good sign.

The book isn't perfect by any means. The translation is very clumsy in places - so much so that several times it really jarred - and some of the plot elements are frankly absurd, but I still found it a very enjoyable and quite rewarding read and I can certainly recommend it warmly.