Windows To The World

 THE PAPER MOON

Andrea Camilleri

Inspector Salvo Montalbano has had to change his morning ritual. He used to lay in bed for ten minutes or so thinking of idiocies. It was the best time of the day. He would wonder what he was going to eat that day, or consider how to tell Livia his girlfriend that the new gift she gave him does not fit and other inconsequential matters. But lately he has become aware of his mortality and he figures that if one starts thinking about death at the crack of dawn by five o’clock one would either shoot oneself or jump into the sea with a rock tied around one's neck.  So now he just bounds out of bed.

One day when he gets to the office early as a result of his new routine, a woman, Michela Pardo comes in with the report that her dear brother Angelo Pardo has not been in touch and she is worried both for herself and her ailing mother. Naturally when he goes with her to the brother’s apartment it is to find him murdered. She is positive that the person responsible is  Angelo’s mistress, Elena Sclafai. By this time Montalbano has discovered that Michela has the most beautiful eyes, like a violet lake that a man could drown in. 

With in a short time of finding and questioning Elena it appears that her story is entirely credible. She has an alibi and she too is like a beautiful shark and he is the bait. She insists that she had not seen Angelo recently because she was breaking up with him. He was a doctor who had lost his license and was now a drug representative, he travelled a lot and there were other people who could have wanted him dead.

At this same time there have been several deaths from drug over doses, one of which is that of an important Senator. It appears that these latest drugs have been tainted in some way. And the Narcotics squad suddenly descends on Vigata.  The Vigata police are under pressure. Montalbano sees it this way. The Senator’s death has been cleaned up for the media and he is supposed to have died from natural causes. If this is the case who ever sold him drugs are not responsible for his death. It is also more than likely it will come out that who ever sold the Senator his drugs, sold them also to many of the Senator’s playmates. In all a big mess.

 

Montalbano knows that when the dealers are arrested and the possibility of well-known names hitting the airwaves occurs to those in power, the police will be criticized for not proceeding more cautiously. He recommends to his subordinate that in keeping with tradition, after arresting the drug dealer it would be advisable not to turn him over to the judge immediately, but to hold onto him for a few days then transfer him to jail. This way others will have had time to get organized and then the accused will be served good coffee in prison and he will no longer be able to supply the list of his clients. And they will all live happily ever after.

In the drug case he lets his subordinate Mimi Augello take the lead while he tries to figure out which of the bewitching women is trying to tell him that the moon is made of paper in such a way that he is swallowing it hook, line and sinker. Drug deaths, drug reps and murder do suggest a link between the two cases. Montalbano is wily enough to see through the murk to find a killer.

Forget about your Machiavelli, shelve your ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu and put aside any other tomes you have on strategy and get conversant with Andrea Camilleri’s series about Sicilian policeman Inspector Salvo Montalbano. What he doesn’t know about stratagems probably is not worth knowing. That he remains honest and incorruptible while swimming with the sharks and villains is the icing on the cake. The stories are always so plausible and told with such humor that each book can make your day.