Andrea Camilleri’s fourth Montalbano novel The Voice of the Violin was published in 1997 (English version in 2003).
It begins humorously with Salvo Montalbano realising it wasn’t going to be his day – besides attending a funeral (the wrong one), other set-backs pile up – not least his distant relationship with Livia. He also has to contend with the new commissioner, Benetti-Alderighi and the new forensics guy, Dr Arquá, both of whom reserve ‘their cordial antipathy’ for the inspector (p29).
Then it gets serious. By roundabout means Montalbano discovers a naked young woman suffocated in her bed. There is no shortage of suspects – her ageing husband, who is a distinguished doctor, a simple shy admirer who has gone missing, an antiques dealer from Bologna, the victim’s friend Anna. The key just might be a reclusive violinist!
‘Maestro Barber struck up the first notes. And before he’d been listening even five minutes, the inspector began to get a strange, disturbing feeling. It seemed to him as if the violin had become a voice, a woman’s voice that was begging to be heard and understood’ (p222).
Montalbano knows his faults. ‘In physics, at school, he’d always been between a D and a F. If he’d had a teacher like her [Anna] in his day, he might have become another Einstein’ (p67).
Acerbic, temperamental, Montalbano castigates his loyal men when things go wrong – but they take it all with a pinch of salt because he gets to the root of the mystery every time. The usual gang are here – Mimi Augello, long suffering; the hapless Catarella who undergoes a sort of transformation; and detective Fazio who he most relies on.
The
story races along with rapid scene-shifts – often merely quick-fire telephone
conversations. And of course there’s food as well as wit and poignancy, all of which
you come to expect in a Montalbano book.
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