Product Description

"The Terracotta Dog" opens with a mysterious tete-a-tete with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano gives to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers dead fifty years ago and still embracing are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him, heedless of personal danger, on a journey through the island's past and into a family's dark heart amid the horrors of World War II.Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Salvo Montalbano has garnered millions of fans worldwide with his sardonic, engaging take on Sicilian small-town life and his genius for deciphering the most enigmatic of crimes. 'The novels of Andrea Camilleri breath out the sense of place, the sense of humour, and the sense of despair that fill the air of Sicily. To read him is to be taken to that glorious, tortured island' - Donna Leon. 'Both farcical and endearing, Montalbano is a cross between Columbo and Chandler's Philip Marlowe, with the added culinary idiosyncrasies of an Italian Maigret' - "Guardian".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15171 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author

Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy’s most famous contemporary writers. The Montalbano mysteries have been best-sellers all over Europe. He lives in Rome.

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

Customer Reviews

A Stunning Triumph!
The Terra-Cotta Dog is an extremely rewarding police procedural with deep cultural and historical roots that provide a delightful complexity for the reader. I would award this book six stars if I could.

If you have not yet read any of the Inspector Montalbano books, I suggest that you take the time to read The Shape of Water first. That book helps set up the context of the characters and makes The Terra-Cotta Dog far more interesting.

This book has Inspector Montalbano solving several mysteries before he is done. In a fascinating way, each mystery leads unexpectedly into the next one. And so on. It's like opening the Russian nesting dolls to find another treasure inside. I can rarely recall such fine plotting and seamless connections between disparate story elements in one police procedural.

As the book opens, Montalbano has been invited to meet secretly with a dangerous killer. Is it a trap? Why would the killer want to meet with a police inspector? The answer leads to a merry-go-round of public relations activities to cover up the real motive. Then, the charade collapses and Montalbano finds out about an unknown crime. More public relations follow . . . and from them Montalbano gets a clue to other hidden crimes. The rest of the novel reminded me of an archeologist's work in uncovering earlier civilizations that built on the same site.

The main contexts for these mysteries are the Sicilian Mafia, the Fascist era, the American invasion of Sicily during World War II, and the Christian and Moslem religions. How's that for an unusual combination?

Montalbano emerges as an even more interesting character in this book than in The Shape of Water, especially as his relationship with his girl friend Livia develops. As before, the food references are a delight and add a warm human touch to offset the evil that coils throughout the story.

As I finished the story, I was reminded how important it is to be dogged in chasing down details that don't seem to make sense. There's always an explanation for mysteries, but the explanation will never be revealed unless you follow the path to the answer wherever it takes you.

the best kind of detective story
This is one of the best of the excellent Salvo Montalbano series by Camilleri. As usual, at the outset there are odd goings on but not necessarily crimes - a characterful old man dies in a road accident (or it seems to be an accident), there is a bizarre theft from a supermarket (it does not make sense, and Montalbano is very quick to spot that) and the terrifying Tana the Greek confides in the Inspector. But it the remarkable discovery of the secret, blocked cave, the two dead, naked lovers (are they lovers?) and the terracota dog that really set things buzzing. Throw in a defrocked priest who drinks milk out of a baby's bottle, a charming old headmaster and his wife, a hospital bedside scene in which Montalbano is anxiously guarded by his three women, Livia, Anna and Ingrid, and the usual frustrations he faces in his dealings with bureaucrats and less capable officers. As usual, there is considerable atmosphere, frequent enjoyable excursions into the world of Sicilian cooking and, this time, an intriguing link between past and present, all of which combine to make this an excellent book of its kind and great fun to read.

A Stunning Triumph!
The Terra-Cotta Dog is an extremely rewarding police procedural with deep cultural and historical roots that provide a delightful complexity for the reader. I would award this book six stars if I could.

If you have not yet read any of the Inspector Montalbano books, I suggest that you take the time to read The Shape of Water first. That book helps set up the context of the characters and makes The Terra-Cotta Dog far more interesting.

This book has Inspector Montalbano solving several mysteries before he is done. In a fascinating way, each mystery leads unexpectedly into the next one. And so on. It's like opening the Russian nesting dolls to find another treasure inside. I can rarely recall such fine plotting and seamless connections between disparate story elements in one police procedural.

As the book opens, Montalbano has been invited to meet secretly with a dangerous killer. Is it a trap? Why would the killer want to meet with a police inspector? The answer leads to a merry-go-round of public relations activities to cover up the real motive. Then, the charade collapses and Montalbano finds out about an unknown crime. More public relations follow . . . and from them Montalbano gets a clue to other hidden crimes. The rest of the novel reminded me of an archeologist's work in uncovering earlier civilizations that built on the same site.

The main contexts for these mysteries are the Sicilian Mafia, the Fascist era, the American invasion of Sicily during World War II, and the Christian and Moslem religions. How's that for an unusual combination?

Montalbano emerges as an even more interesting character in this book than in The Shape of Water, especially as his relationship with his girl friend Livia develops. As before, the food references are a delight and add a warm human touch to offset the evil that coils throughout the story.

As I finished the story, I was reminded how important it is to be dogged in chasing down details that don't seem to make sense. There's always an explanation for mysteries, but the explanation will never be revealed unless you follow the path to the answer wherever it takes you.