Voice of the Violin (The Inspector Montalbano Mysteries Book 4)

I have become enamoured with the Italian mystery genre in the last 2-3 years. It has been an education to explore Venice with Commissario Brunetti and Florence with Marshall Guarnaccia or Sicily with Inspector Montealbano. All three authors (Donna Leon, Magdalen Nabb, and Andrea Camilleri) know their locale and focus on the daily lives of the citizens, while moving along a rip-roaring story. But there are significant differences - Leon and Nabb write in English (Nabb uses British terms that remind me of Christie that break the spell) while Camilleri writes in Italian. He is Italian - he understands the importance of the land and the wine and especially the food that fuels Sicily. (The translation is superb.) Leon and Nabb certainly know their areas and their craft and they are very, very good, but Camilleri works the magic.Camilleri captures the angst and the pain and the loneliness of Inspector Montalbano. But he also captures in mouthwatering detail the need to eat with a focus on the quality and variety of food that stops the Inspector's world, even when he has to go long distances to find the right place to eat.I like to read a series from the beginning. I like to meet and greet the protagonist and then watch him/her grow with fond memories brought about by references to prior books. Voice of the Violin is one of the earliest of the very highly selected Montalbano books that have been translated and one that I come back to to reread because of how it changes, or perhaps most interestingly as you read more books, doesn't change Montalbano's life.I highly recommend all three Italian protagonists with Inspector Montalbano and Commissario Brunetti right at the top of my list of "must buy" when a new book hit the market. They take me to places I have never visited, though I now seem to know, and allow me to interact with people I would like to know better.Start with the TerraCotta Dog and move to the Voice of the Violin as you can, remembering to stop and focus on fine food prepared well along the way.

I had read some of this series years ago and picked them up recently as I had a pile of them and didn't have a clue as to which ones I had already read. So I put them in chronological order and started reading. Of course I didn't remember almost anything. I found I enjoyed the sarcasm and curmudgeon police inspector so much I wanted to read them all. I got to the end of number 3 (I had) and found I needed to find out what happened to the new characters so bought this number 4 that was missing from my pile. It was a quick read since I was interested in the furtherance of these people's lives. I have found myself chuckling while I am reading them at the pure snarkiness of the protagonist. Suffice it to say - they are well written, full of interesting details about Sicily and especially good eating and well - I found I thoroughly enjoy them so onto the next ones and beyond.

In  The Snack Thief (Inspector Montalbano Mysteries) , Andrea Camilleri threw his protagonist into a mind set and cricumstances that Montalbano would never have voluntarily accepted. But the circumstances of the previous book wreaked havoc with his emotions and his life. In this novel, life more or less gets jerked back into place.The beauty of this book, as with the entire series is HOW the circumstances jerked it back into place. All is not what it appears, that is the mantra of most mystery novels, none more so than the Inspector Montalbano series. Because Camilleri is juggling many balls at once. he is making social and political comementaries on the state of Italian and Sicilian politics and cultrue, he is talking about food, and the proper appreciation of food. he is also making judgement calls on relationships between people, whether it is between men and women or everyday dealings, he has a lot to say. But this isn't a series about third person reveries on the esoteric subject of human relations, the protagonist is not sitting on some exalted throne, making sniggly and cowardly observations. The protagonist is in the middle of the fight between right and wrong while also living in a world suffused with grey moral tonalities. It is, as I had said before, extremely Italian, where justification is often demanded but the circumstances will always diffuse the response into meanginglessness.

Salvo Montalbano is a jerk. He cares about food and the case he is trying to solve, but everything else is less important.Still, he is a joy to read, and the Voice of the Violin -- the fourth book of the series -- is a wonderful and complex story with plot twists and turns, mixed with endearing characters and (as always) descriptions of amazing food.Here we finally find Catarella coming into his own, and perhaps Salvo's hard exterior cracking just a bit. Maybe Livia is a little more important than he allows to show. Maybe the way he treats Fazio, Mimi and the rest is more out of love than curmudgeon-ness.Still, there's no doubt he is a jerk. A lovable jerk, but still a jerk.The Montalbano stories are easy to get lost in and are enjoyable if short reads. Camilleri and his translator make an irressistable team. Not only are the characters you meet in these books attractive, but Sicily gloriously wonderful is as well.These are expensive ebooks and I wish Amazon would offer set deals. The books are short and it is difficult to justify paying so much for each one. Come on! Why not give us a break?

The Voice of the Violin is another mesmerising murder mystery in the Inspector Montalbano mystery series. It is the fourth book in the series. While it is helpful to have read the preceding novels to fully appreciate some of the sub-plots that run throughout the series, it is not essential to have done so to enjoy the main plot in this novel ... namely who had murdered the attractive Michela Licalzi ... and why?As you soon discover there are a number of potential suspects for the crime but as if this isn't enough, Inspector Montalbano has a number of additional issues to contend with, foremost of which is a new boss who doesn't feel he is up to the job. Couple this with his disdain for most of his colleagues, his inability to cope with the chores of everyday life and his convoluted personal relationships, it makes one wonder how on earth he manages to solve the crimes he investigates!I thoroughly enjoyed this story and think it will appeal to anyone who: enjoys murder mystery stories set in wonderfully atmospheric locations (Sicily in this case); has a plot with plenty of suspects; contains a cast of characters whose personalities leap out from the page; is peppered with plenty of dry humour and observations about living, working and the politics of Italy in the early years of the 21st century. I have to admit I am now hooked on this series ... something you may have probably already suspected from this glowing review (:-).

Oh, what an unadulterated interlude The Voice of the Violin proved to be! Serving as my introduction to the highly acclaimed Inspector Salvo Montalbano series, I had been under the illusion that these novels would be rather dry affairs, perhaps because of the glimpses I have caught of the TV adaptations. It took a recommendation for me to take the plunge, see the error of my ways and be utterly beguiled by the charming, witty and colourful characters who fill the world of Camilleri. On occasions stopping just short of farce, The Voice of the Violin proved to be a hilarious crime caper. It only took two chapters for me to feel like I was amongst friends, instantly at home in Vigàta, Sicily and watching the fractious and frequently obnoxious Inspector Montalbano deftly navigating his way through the murky world of Italian bureaucracy, politics and criminal movers and shakers. Relying on a combination of his wits, humour, honesty, frequently unorthodox methods and a quid pro quo philosophy, Montalbano is a comic gem!Waking up to grey skies at his home in Marinella and remembering the telephone call of the previous night from the intellectually challenged and frankly incoherent Catarella (Cat), sees irascible Montalbano start the day with an ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach. Cat ("Izzatchoo oona line?") has been assigned to answering the station's phone in the mistaken belief that he can do less damage in that role than any other. However it hasn't stopped him forgetting to inform his boss of a funeral that he must attend the very next morning. Arriving to transport him is the stations official driver, Gallo, and something off a boy racer which explains his prang with a bottle-green Renault Twingo on the outward journey. Despite other unforeseen events meaning that Montalbano misses the funeral, when he returns he notices the note attached to Twingo has not been removed and there is no sign of activity in the only house to which it seemingly belongs. His interest aroused, Montalbano pays a unofficial visit in the manner of a common thief later that evening only to discover the naked body of a murdered young woman, but how is he to bring this to police attention? The obvious answer seems to be through his friendship with mother figure, Signora Clementine Vasile Cozzo and her anonymous tip-offs! The chance to listen to the reclusive violin maestro Cataldo Barbera playing his weekly recital is merely a by-product of his visit to the remarkably astute elderly lady.This is just the start of a encounter which sees the woman identified as Mrs Michela Licalzi, the gorgeous and much younger wife of an eminent orthopaedic surgeon. Some digging and fraternising with a close friend of Michela's, in the form of enigmatic Anna Tropeano, sees Montalbano uncover an antiques-dealing lover in Bologna and a besotted mentally disturbed local man, Maurizio Di Blasi. Internal politics and the animosity of the new Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi sees Montalbano replaced on the investigation by the Captain of the Flying Squad, whereby a quick and murky conclusion leaves a bad taste and sees Montalbano pursue his own below the radar investigation. Leaning on friends, including journalist and television news anchorman, Nicolò Zito, calling in favours and employing devious methods sees Montalbano live to fight another day and come up smelling of roses. The very best position is watching from the sidelines as he does so!One mistake after another seems to sum this case up, but in the matter of his love life with the tempestuous Livia, will Salvo Montalbano do the honourable thing? The flawless translation courtesy of Stephen Sartarelli ensured every iota of character, wit and warmth was conveyed through the pages.Whilst I am normally pretty indifferent to adhering to the order of a series other readers have suggested that life in Vigàta does benefit from doing so, hence after being utterly charmed by my first encounter I have subsequently ordered books one to ten!Review written by Rachel Hall (@hallrachel)

In this early Montalbano adventure, the interaction between Montalbano and his colleagues is fresh and Montalbano applies the majority of his focus to the case at hand. By that, I mean there are fewer trips to restaurants and less time spent squabbling with Livia.With an enigmatic young lady dead, suspects are initially hard to come by. The story unfolds at a sedate pace and the plot is one of the best of this series. At times, laced with sadness but Camilleri usually offers up heart warming characters to somewhat negate the villains and Voice of the violin is no exception.

In Voice of the Violin, Montalbano is pre-occupied with the question of adoption of a young boy he rescued in an earlier book. There are threads that run through the Montalbano books, like his long-distance relationship with his girlfriend and his rivalry with his number two, that add to our understanding of his character without any description being needed.The crime is discovered by accident, and needs to be discovered officially before he can investigate, and then local politics take over and he is ousted from the investigation, to the outrage of his team. The Sicilian detective world is one where women are either victims or witnesses, mainly young and beautiful, whether elegant or peasant, unless they are old, in which case they are often venerable and wise. Or exceptionally good cooks. I should say that food is a major feature of these books. You’d better enjoy seafood and pasta! A couple of recurring female characters are smart cookies who usefully prod Salvo in the right direction. In this story we are mired in a case of inept carabinieri falsifying evidence until something that has nagged Montalbano right from the start is suddenly propelled back into his brain thanks to the wise lady and her weekly violin recital.I enjoy the Camilleri style, the scenery is gorgeous, the characters just daft enough to avoid being total caricatures of dim policeman, and the more I read, the more I enjoy them. I stayed up late to finish this one as I didn’t want to put it down

Chronologically the fourth outing for Inspector Salvo Montalbano and his Sicilian team of detectives, THE VOICE OF THE VIOLIN is a perfect example of all that is good about this series. The plot is one of the stronger, leaner ones, in which Salvo, through a colleague's bad driving, inadvertently discovers the body of a beautiful woman in a house which she was having built. As Salvo's boss and mentor has now retired, Salvo soon gets caught up in politics and taken off the case. To his annoyance, the flying squad sent to replace him quickly chase down a suspect (previously considered and discounted by Salvo) and kill him in a gun battle.Or was it a gun battle? His suspicions aroused, and unable to throw off the need to discover who committed the crime, Salvo uses some devious tactics of his own to expose the fraudulent activities of his colleagues and to manoeuvre his superiors to reassign him to the case.Salvo's gradual uncovering of the true story leading to the crime is logically satisfying, as well as introducing a rewarding set of characters among the witnesses and suspects. The role of the titular violin does not become obvious until later on in the book, but we know that there is going to be some later significance in Salvo's visit to his old friend Clementina. In this visit, she reveals that her upstairs neighbour is a reclusive, retired maestro violinist, who plays her concerts via programmes sent by his housekeeper, of which she shows her appreciation by phoning him afterwards and applauding by the open receiver.Sure enough, the violin provides the key to the mystery, and Salvo eventually ensures that justice is done, even if it isn't clear how sufficient evidence can be gathered to charge or convict the perpetrator. The only slight false note is the McGuffin that isn't a McGuffin - throughout the book we are reminded that there is a car in the police garage that hasn't been investigated. So obviously so, in fact, that the reader concludes that the car can have nothing to do with the case. But why does the widower, then, keep asking for it, when he has no particular reason to do so? And, at the end, a discovery is made in the car which, if the detectives had only checked at the beginning, makes much of the investigation (and hence the bulk of the book) unnecessary.Even so, it is a pleasure for its own sake to have the chance to join Salvo and his increasingly close-knit team (earlier rivalries and tensions are gradually being reduced or forgotten) and to experience his boyishly irascible ways. We also see plenty of his "mother's side", as he thinks of it - his sensitivity towards women (not only his girlfriend Livia, who here receives a crushing disappointment, but the murdered woman and her friend, Anna) and, last but by no means least, we can enjoy his visceral appreciation of those wonderful meals prepared by his housekeeper or at one of those trattorias that always seem to be on just the right corner when needed.