The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Inspector Montalbano is the detective extraordinaire in a town in Sicily, solving murders while managing not to get in the cross-hairs of the Mafia. He has the lustful heart and other body parts of a stereotypical Sicilian male but the brain and tenacity of Sherlock Holmes. His men are mostly obedient buffoons and provide comic relief. Montalbano himself is afraid of nothing except speaking in public and being promoted.
The details of the mystery are unimportant. The book is all about style and wit. This is a translation from Italian. It is mostly lighthearted, almost cute, in tone, but occasionally lapses into gratuitous vulgarity. I suspect that may be due to the translation. I don’t know Italian and perhaps some of those original words aren’t considered quite so offensive there.
I listened to the audiobook and the reader was very good