A Tunisian patrol boat kills a worker on an Italian fishing trawler, and a retired business man, Mr. Lapecora, is found dead in the elevator of his apartment building with a knife in his back. What possible connection could there be? In the style we've now come to expect of Andrea Camilleri, in this, the third novel in the Inspector Montalbano series, seemingly disparate events are part of the course for our cantankerous protagonist. Events that will eventually lead Montalbano into the world of international terrorism, government corruption, the shadowy underworld of the Italian secret service, and the adoption of 'the Snack Thief'.

In this book Camilleri delivers a master class in character development. If we have come to know the curmudgeon Montalbano in the first two books, it has been only skin deep. In this outing we are given a window into his soul. With news that his father has only a short time to live, and his relationship with Livia brought to head through their relationship with a young orphaned child; Montalbano's professional and private worlds collide explosively with yet unknown consequences for the future.

The best in the series to date, "The Snack Thief" promises rich rewards for the reader committed to following Montalbano's journey through, projecting him headlong and breathless into the next book, "The Voice of the Violin". ( )

A good yarn with plenty of atmosphere. ( )

Excellent story. You can smell the food and Sicily -and the sun. ( )

3 in the Salvo Montalbano Italian police procedural series. Once again Salvo manages to be offensive to almost everyone while investigating the murder of an elderly man in an elevator. When he learns it is (at least peripherally) related to an international case in which a man was shot on a fishing boat, he’s like a pit bull that won’t let go as he manipulates the stupid secret service and his superiors into dropping the answers he needs into his lap. Also with some serious personal conflicts and things to go through, Salvo spends time soul searching and consuming various gustatory delights along the way as well. Enjoyable as always—don’t know how such an ornery cuss manages to be so likable, but like him I do! ( )

I absolutely loved this book. It is the third in the Montalbano series, which I am reading in order, and so far I think it is my favourite.

In this one, the world-weary Montalbano gets embroiled in a case involving an apparently respectable retired businessman who was murdered in the lift at his building, and a Tunisian fisherman murdered in a trawler boat just off the Sicilian coast.

During the course of the investigation, he finds himself becoming reluctantly a kind of 'surrogate father' to a young boy, Francois, whose mother, a cleaner and prostitute named Karima, who is involved in the case, and who goes missing. This puts great strain on the Inspector's relationship with his girlfriend Livia.

Montalbano is a character who I really like despite myself. His friends and colleagues consider him to be unreasonable, and possibly crazy, and yet they still like and respect him. This reflects this reader's impression of the man.

Overall, I would recommend this book, and indeed the whole Montalbano series, based on the books I have read so far. ( )