August Heat

Great plot, wicked good characters. Read during a heat wave, the sweltering weather descriptions of Sicily in August really connected. (Should be reading about Bergen in January.) Camilleri's details of corrupt political situation in Italy still compares too closely to current events in U.S.

Ah, the series is back in form. Crisp comedy had me laughing out loud over my lunch, but the denoument was much more nuanced and human and touching. 4 1/2 stars,

Is it still summer? May I still indulge in mysteries? "He sat outside until eleven o'clock reading a good detective novel... in his mind Montalbano dedicated the book to all those who did not deign to read mystery novels because, in their opinion, they were only entertaining puzzles." p. 113-114

We've been put on notice: something serious is being discussed here. Still, I didn't see it coming. The last page left me feeling so sad. Our self-reflective hero is weak but even more distressingly, a parallel is drawn with depravity. Both murders occur in the same location. The actors are almost the same. Both premeditated and both are crimes born of passion. They both involve deception.

Please, someone, tell me I'm wrong. This is so sad.

Grover Gardner's excellent narration balances out the loss of translator Stephen Sartarelli's footnotes.

I found Livia irritating more than usual in this one and am beginning to wish Montalbano would find another girlfriend. Other than that, this 10th entry in the Montalbano series was another excellent police procedural. I chuckled at times over Montalbano's handling of the bureaucracy!

During a long relentlessly hot August, our good Inspector Salvo Montalbano is faced with a dead body in the hidden first story of a rental property. Since taxes on new construction are based on the total living space, this home was surreptitiously constructed with two apartments, one up and one down, with the downstairs one then covered up on the outside with sandy soil that could easily be removed to allow access once the statutory period allowing "amnesty" for such violations had run. Corruption at every level (see what I did there?) is nothing new for Montalbano, but someone somehow managed to kill a teen-aged girl and hide her body in the underground apartment just before it was buried nearly six years ago. Montalbano needs to find show more out who, without stepping on the wrong toes (worse than stepping on a landmine in Sicily), and try to bring the killer to justice. As nearly always happens in these novels, "justice" is not likely to be administered by the proper authorities. Complicating Salvo's life further is the dead girl's twin sister, who is determined to "help" with his investigation in odd ways that involve midnight swims and clandestine dinners. Not surprisingly, the Inspector is not exactly at the top of his game for a while, but it all works out in the end. All, that is, except for what he may or may not tell his long-time lady-love, Livia, who has been away during all of this excitement. THAT, the reader is left to imagine. show less

August is not the month to be working in Sicily. The heat is oppressive, sweat-drenching, and, if you have no airconditioning, almost unbearable. Inspector Salva Montalbano had intended to leave Vigata to spend the holiday season with his girlfriend Livia, somewhere cooler.

When Salva has to work after all, Livia decides to rent a house by the sea near Vigata. She brings the family of her dearest friend with her. The house has been a summer rental for the past six years ever since its German owner died and his stepson mysteriously disappeared.

The troubles at the beachside house begin on the morning of the third day with an invasion of an army of black cockroaches. On the fifth day it is mice, and then on the eighth, spiders. On the show more eleventh day 3 year old Bruno, the son of Livia's friends, disappears. Montalbano discovers that he has slipped down a narrow shaft leading under the house. In rescuing Bruno, Montalbano uncovers a six-year old murder.

AUGUST HEAT is one of those novels where the weather, the almost unrelenting and palpable heat, becomes one of the cast of characters. Livia and her friends leave after the discovery of the body and so Montalbano doesn't even have her as a distraction.

Reconstructing events that are dead cold is never easy. People's memories are less than precise, witnesses are no longer available, and murderers cover their tracks. Montalbano's peeling back the layers is what makes AUGUST HEAT good reading.

It seems that in the original Italian Camilleri attempted to reproduce the sounds of speech of Montalbano's assistant Catarella. The results of the translation into English are almost comic, and had me reading Catarella's utterances very carefully.
"Catarella? Montalbano here"
"I already rec'nize ya inasmuch as yer voice is all yours, Chief."

AUGUST HEAT is #10 in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series. I have only read one or two others, but was able to enjoy this title almost as a stand-alone. show less

It's hard not to sympathise with Montalbano about the heat. Especially as I sit here trying to write this note on a 38°C day. With a worse one to come. It's something that was really particularly marked in this book - the way the heat became a part of the story, just as the sense of place, and character is so very strong. You could see Montalbano and his colleagues slogging out an investigation in the dreadful heat. You could sympathise with him when the holiday house from hell reared its ugly head, and you definitely could understand how he might be tempted by the twin-sister of the murder victim, no matter how wrong it seems.

At the heart of the book is another tightly constructed plot with aspects of the political and the Mafia built show more in, but not in a manner overwhelming. This isn't a story about the Mafia's control, rather it's a story about the possible outcomes, the idea that some people might be protected as a result of their connections. And it's a story, as always, about Montalbano's dogged pursuit of the truth. To the detriment of a lot around him. Except his meals of course. Some things are sacrosanct.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/august-heat-andrea-camilleri show less