! ( )

3.5* for the book itself, boosted to 4 by Grover Gardner's narration which was excellent as usual.

I may be slightly hard in my rating due to the fact that I decided to re-read the whole series before tackling the final few books that I hadn't read yet. Reading them almost back to back, I noticed more of the repetitive language and behavior than I had previously. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the repetitions grated a bit than this time around.

I found the plot of this penultimate book to be quite a surprise but won't comment further. ( )

En Montalbano es jubila però abans forma part d'una intervenció per atrapar uns mafiosos molt importants, mentre els seus superiors li estan tancant la seva comissaria. ( )

El tancament d'una fàbrica de barques i el posterior suïcidi d'un dels treballadors porten al límit la resistència moral del comissari Montalbano, decidit a plegar abans que el comandant faci efectiva la dissolució de la comissaria. La moral dels agents, per terra, només remunta amb el repte que representa l'aparició d'una goleta molt misteriosa, l'Alcyon, al port de Vigata. No triguen a descobrir que a dins s'hi fan els negocis més bruts, però el problema és: com enxampar-los, si sempre s'acaben refugiant en aigües internacionals?

El més cinematogràfic i internacional dels episodis de Montalbano, gairebé una novel·la d'espies, en què el comissari ha de tractar amb agents secrets, l'FBI i l'acostumada mala vida local. La mala jeia del comissari no havia arribat mai tan lluny.

Kind of a silly little book, but for some reason I do like Inspector Salvo Montalbano. I wasn't sure if I had read any Camilleri before, but once I began reading it started to sound familiar so I'm guessing this would be my third Montalbano mystery. However, I cannot recall my impressions of the others.

This story was very weak though, the premises all around not adding up but the author just went with it. You could certainly give this title a miss and you wouldn't be missing a whole lot.

I'm also not a fan of the stereotyped Italian (Sicilian?) used in this book like... "Righ' 'ere onna premisses, Chief, righ' ere!" There are probably better examples, but that one was close to this Popeye-like one... "Whatta goil, Chief!" Exclamation! Exclamation! Exclamation! WTF! ( )