THE SHAPE OF WATER

An elegant translation of the first in a popular Italian series, in which world-weary, empathetic Sicilian Inspector Salvo Montalbano is handed a hot potato when the body of Silvio Luparello, a local politico, is found in the Pasture, the little town of Vigata’s red-light district. The death seems to have occurred in flagrante of natural causes, but Montalbano’s instincts tell him something is wrong. After years of patiently working behind the scenes, Luparello was about to take center stage. Why would he risk scandal by grazing in a place like the Pasture? Montalbano keeps the case open in spite of pressure from his supervisor, a judge, and a bishop to close it. Luparello’s closest political ally, the lawyer Pietro Rizzo, then proposes an astonishing new alliance with Dr. Cardamone, an enemy of both Luparello and Rizzo. Is this maneuver related to several clues that place Cardamone’s promiscuous daughter-in-law at the scene of Luparello’s death? A lucrative reward is being offered through dubious channels for one such clue, a distinctive necklace taken from the scene by a poor garbage collector. When Luparello’s dry-eyed widow insists that she knows what her husband’s peccadilloes were and were not, Montalbano explores another network of crimes and desires, as tangled as the tentacles of that Sicilian specialty, the octopus.

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.