Andrea Camilleri The Snack Thief
Il ladro del merendine (1996)
translated by Stephen Sartarelli (2003)
Picador 2004
Every time I pick up this or another Inspector Montalbano mystery I can’t help myself: I always hear the wonderful strains of Franco Piersanti’s tango, the signature tune to RAI’s popular TV series.
As a musician I love the quirky nature of this piece, the insistent dance rhythm, the melodic fragments promising but rarely delivering development, the dark chocolate of the double bass — Piersanti’s own instrument — counterpointing wind and upper string fragments. In a way, the cornucopia offered by this short opening credits sequence matches both Montalbano’s dependable unpredictability and his self-evident delight in the range of Sicilian cuisine. And of course the various themes, short as they are, are the counterparts of the several distinctive plot lines that are woven together in this and every Montalbano novel. Naturally Sicily, at a geographic crossroads in the Mediterranean, is full of cultural strands too, from prehistoric peoples, ancient Greeks and Romans, Iberians, North Africans.
A Tunisian shot dead on a Sicilian fishing boat at sea, a retired businessman knifed in a lift, youngsters plagued by a child who steals their snacks; for Commissario Salvo Montalbano these all appear to be unrelated incidents along the south coast of the Sicilian triangle. But as investigations continue all is not as it seems. Continue reading “Endlessly endearing”
Calmgrove 