The shape of water (original title: La forma dell'acqua)

The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavor. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendor Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano, as honest as he is streetwise and as scathing to fools and villains as he is compassionate to their victims, is not ready to close the case - even though he's being pressured by Vigata's police chief, judge, and bishop. Picking his way through a labyrinth of high-comedy corruption, delicious meals, vendetta firepower, and carefully planted false clues, Montalbano can be relied on, whatever the cost, to get to the heart of the matter.

The Terra-Cotta Dog (Il cane di terracotta)

The Terra-cotta Dog opens with the inspector's mysterious téte-a-téte with a mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and dying words that lead him to an illegal arms cache in a mountain cave. There, in a secret grotto, he finds a harrowing scene: two young lovers, dead fifty years and still embracing, watched over by a life-size terra-cotta 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 bombardment.

The Snack Thief (Il ladro di merendine)

In the third book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, the urbane and perceptive Sicilian detective exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue in a compelling new case. When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Montalbano suspects the link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other schoolchildren's midmorning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life-as well as Montalbano's-is on the line . . .

The Voice of the Violin (La voce del violino)

In this latest novel, Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a lovely, naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder.

Un mese con Montalbano

Salvo Montalbano is a police inspector with an ideal of justice, a fiancée in Genoa and three great passions: eat, drink and good literature. He faces a violent world with the arms of intelligence, pity and humor.

Gli arancini di Montalbano

Twenty short stories where Inspector Montalbano faces very strange crimes and criminals: aged actors, bedroom secrets, a funereal script; former headmasters who cheat generous prostitutes; innocent fathers of mafiosi transformed into killers; faithful wives with cruel vendettas; rubbish collectors with drug trafficking secrets; violent farmers with mobile phones; judges feeling guilty.

La gita a Tindari

A new enquiry for Inspector Montalbano between the imaginary Vigata and Tindari. A triple homicide: a young womanizer who lived an expensive life, two pensioners that buried in their homes that had decided on a sudden trip to Tindari. The only link is the block of flats they all live in. But Montalbano can read the signs that come from the ancient living in the modern continent of Sicily: he is helped by an old olive tree, his team, Ingrid, a book by Conrad and a ruthless Unnamed.

La Paura di Montalbano

Another collection of short stories by Andrea Camilleri, three longer ones and three shorter ones, where Inspector Montalbano will have to deal with his fear and where Catarella becomes a hero.

Il corso delle cose

A town in Sicily, thirty years ago. Vito is a loner, nicknamed "ombra" (shadow) even if he has no shadows in his life. One evening somebody tries to murder him. A mistake? According to the police it is a warning but Vito does not understand. What do they want from him? Why has he been threatened? He will understand too late and the bitter truth will give him the courage that he thought he did not have.

Un filo di fumo

Inspired by a leaflet that the author found among his Grandfather's papers that warned against the trafficking of a dishonest sulfur trader, the rest comes from the mind of Andrea Camilleri.

La strage dimenticata

The revolts of 1848 in Sicily as an excuse for transformist retaliations by the nobles: in this context two bloodbaths with the authorities covering everything up. The first took place at Porto Empedocle, where Major Sarzana killed 114 convicts, suffocating and burning them alive in a prison cell; the second took place at Pantelleria where mafiosi and land owners executed 15 farmers on pretentious accusations. Camilleri, based on documents and family memories, tells the tale with bitter humor.

La stagione della caccia

An historic monograph on a state bloodbath just before the Sicilian revolution of 1848 narrated with the usual humor by Andrea Camilleri.

La bolla di componenda

Componenda means agreement, compromise, transaction needed to settle an agreement between two opposing parties. Something that a state should not accept. But in Sicily the Italian State had to adjust to this practice in facing bandits, mafia and the many arrogant people.

Il gioco della mosca

These are all micro stories, all originating from a saying, a famous quote, part of a family and town mythology of when Andrea Camilleri was a kid and when Porto Empedocle was still called Molo di Girgenti.

Il birraio di Preston

A story on the intrigues, murders and revolts following the incomprehensible determination of the prefect of Caltanisetta, Bortuzzi, to inaugurate the local theatre with an unknown opera, The Brewer of Preston.

La concessione del telefono

A story on the bureaucratic intrigue of concession of a private telephone line in 1892 based on a real ministerial decree.

La mossa del cavallo

An honest man who in the corrupt and mafioso world of Sicily at the end of the 1900's has to face an murder accusation. Born in Sicily, but grown up in Genoa, Giovanni Bovara is invited by the government to be chief inspector of the windmills, a post that cost the lives of his two predecessors: how can this third one be eliminated? The local mafia, a mixture of politics, business and crime, decides to frame him.