Excursion to Tindari
Inspector Montalbano [5]
Andrea Camilleri
Penguin USA, Inc. (2001)
Rating:
****
Tags:
Mystery, Andrea Camilleri, Thriller
Maybe a phrase, a line, a hint somewhere would reveal a reason, any reason, for the elderly couple's disappearance. They'd saved everything ...there was even a copy of the 'certificate of living existence', that nadir of bureaucratic imbecility ...What was the 'protocol', to use a word dear to government offices? Did one simply write on a sheet of paper something like: 'I, the undersigned, Salvo Montalbano, hereby declare myself to be in existence', sign it, and turn it in to the appointed clerk? A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigata police headquarters. But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily's brutal 'New Mafia', which leads him down a path more evil and more far-reaching than any he has been down before. Praise for Andrea Camilleri: 'A joy to read' The Times 'This savagely funny police procedural proves that sardonic laughter is a sound that translates ever so smoothly into English' New York Times
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTES
FOR MORE MONTALBANO NOVELS, LOOK FOR THE
Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano series
“Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.” -USA Today
“This savagely funny police procedural ... prove[s] that sardonic laughter is a sound that translates ever so smoothly into English.” -The New York Times Book Review
“Wit and delicacy and the fast-cut timing of farce play across the surface ... but what keeps it from frothing into mere intellectual charm is the persistent, often sexually bemused Montalbano, moving with ease along zigzags created for him, teasing out threads of discrepancy that unravel the whole.” -Houston Chronicle
“Hailing from the land of Umberto Eco and La Cosa Nos- tra, Montalbano can discuss a pointy-headed book like Western Attitudes Toward Death as unflinchingly as he can pore over crime-scene snuff photos. He throws together an extemporaneous lunch of shrimp with lemon wedges and oil as gracefully as he dodges advances from attractive women.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Subtle, sardonic, and molto simpatico: Montalbano is the Latin re-creation of Philip Marlowe, working in a place that manages to be both more and less civilized than Chandler’s Los Angeles.” -Kirkus (starred)
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A PENGUIN MYSTERY
EXCURSION TO TINDARI
Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.
Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator. He is also the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Open Vault.
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in Penguin Books 2005
9 10
Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2005
All rights reserved
Originally published in Italian as La gita a Tindari by Sellerio editore. © 2000 Sellerio
editore via Siracusa 50 Palermo.
Publishers Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBL1CATION DATA
Camilleri, Andrea.
[Gita a Tindari. English]
Excursion to Tindari / Andrea Camilleri ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.
p. cm.
“A Penguin mystery.”
eISBN : 978-1-101-12682-0
I. Sartarclli, Stephen,__II. Title.
PQ4863.A3894G3713 2004
853’.914-dc22 2004053654
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1
He realized he was awake, as his mind was functioning logically and not following the absurd labyrinths of dream. He could hear the rhythmic swashing of the sea; a predawn breeze was blowing through the open window. Yet he stubbornly kept his eyes closed, knowing that the ill humor boiling inside him would come spewing out the moment he opened his eyes, leading him to say or do something stupid he would later regret.
The sound of whistling on the beach reached his ears. At that hour, surely someone walking to work in Vigàta. The tune was familiar, but he couldn’t recall the title or lyrics. What did it matter? He never had been able to whistle himself. Not even by sticking a finger up his ass.
He stuck a finger in his asshole