Product Description

The commissioner kept looking at him with an expression that combined contempt and commiseration, apparently discerning unmistakable signs of senile dementia in the inspector.

“I’m going to speak very frankly, Montalbano. I don’t have a very high opinion of you.”

“Nor I of you,” the inspector replied bluntly.

Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46477 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Marcel Berlins, The Times
Wit and laugh-aloud humour, the delicious atmosphere of Sicily, the occasional recipes..and the character of Montalbano himself...a joy to read

About the Author

Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy's most famous contemporary writers. The Montalbano series has been translated into nine languages and the novels have been bestsellers both in Italy and Germany. The author lives in Rome.

Stephen Sartarelli is a poet and translator. He lives in France.

Customer Reviews

What a great new find...
For me this is a great new find.
Translated from italian, it looses nothing of the humour and richness of Montalbano and his life in Sicily. I have laughed out loud and been captivated by the setting.
A wonderful read.

Another enjoyable read by Camilleri
When the police car of Inspector Montalbano hits a small car parked at an apparently deserted country home, the inspector has a gut feeling that something is wrong. He finds the body of a beautiful woman, strangled in her bedroom. After a short while it turns out that the woman has numerous acquaintances in the area and that there are a fair number of suspects. The investigation is not made any easier by the fact that Montalbano's superiors are not exactly supporting him, even though his own team is squarely behind him. A combination of good policework and flashes of brilliance in the end solves the crime. In the meantime Montalbano also has to sort out the mess that he is making of his private life. And that is the nice thing about this series: it is the combination of police work and private hassles, that make Montalbano into more than your average, typical policeman-from-a-novel, but rather a real character with his good and his bad sides.

characterful and a lot of fun
This is my favourite of the Inspector Montalbano books (all of which I like) so far - as much as anything because I can actually follow the plot without too much head-scratching. For a series of detective stories to succeed, there must be various ingredients - an interesting and quirky detective who meets, perhaps, misunderstanding and opposition from lesser lights in his profession (in this case an obnoxious new Commissioner) a plot with some freshness, originality and surprises in it (why is this called 'The Voice of the Violin'? We find out 5/6 of the way through, and it's fully appropriate) a vivid, characterful setting, perhaps some humour, and a fluid pace to the narrative. Camilleri achieves all of these things in his books, and this one is no exception, and to it all he adds Italian food - Montalbano is quite capable of halting his investigation for a couple of hours if he nears a restaurant whose chef knows what he's doing. I don't think this is quite five-star stuff, but no-one could regret reading it ; it gives a lot of pleasure.