Rating: 
Summary: Salvo to the Rescue!!
Review: A. Camilleri's Vigata, Sicily is poor and crime-ridden, but it bosts a hero - Salvo Montalbano, a sexy, cynical, honest, brutally funny, well-read and highly intelligent police inspector with well-placed friends. When a powerful politician dies with his pants around his ankles in the seediest part of town, it looks like simple case of death by natural causes. But Salvo isn't fooled, and rankles the local powers-that-be by not closing the case. It's great that this popular Italian series is finally being translated!
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing.
Review: Andea Camilleri's Silvio Montalbano series has been best seller material in Europe for years----just recently translated for the U.S. market. Camilleri's reserved and nimble writing style loses nothing in translation. Montalbano is a highly respected, cultivated Sicilian police inspector. In "The Shape of Water," the body of a local, well-connected politico is discovered with his pants around his ankles in a rough area populated by hookers and drug dealers. Cause of death appears to be heart failure---the vic had a history of heart ailments. Montalbano's supervisors pressure him to do a swift signed, sealed and delivered natural causes ruling. Many little things bother the inspector---so he pursues the case. A generous amount of eccentric, off-center and droll characters abound----even the garbage men possess Ph.D.s. Montalbano is a heady, witty, subtle, cynical investigator; not the pistol packing, bare-knuckles type. It is an inventive, clever, smart police procedural with three follow-ups. I am glad I discovered them and look forward to the entire series.
Rating: 
Summary: A refreshing change
Review: Andrea Camilleri's "The Shape of Water" is the first in a series of Inspector Montalbano mysteries, only recently translated to English. I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by interesting characters, a mystery I didn't figure out in advance, and a protaganist with many layers, who is serious, intelligent, self-depracating, and quite funny!
The story begins with the discovery by 2 garbagemen of a local politician, dead in a car, with his pants around his ankles. Detective work in Sicily is quite different than what you would expect in the US. But Inspector Montalbano performs his job largely independent of supervision and is fairly free to follow up in whatever way he pleases.
The pace is relaxed, and the book does not have your typical action-adventure style. Everything is revealed in a very matter of fact style in a storytelling manner, rather than one action scene to the next. Not to worry though, there are plenty of questions to be answered here, and Montalbano gets to them in his own good time. He manages to fit in a love interest, and some fantastic gourmet food as he goes about his days. His gastronomic interests are amusing in themselves.
I don't want to go on about the story itself here, it might spoil the surprises for the readers. Suffice to say this was a very enjoyable read, with plenty of plot twists, that will make you want to read the rest of the series. Highly recommended to mystery lovers.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing change
Review: Andrea Camilleri's "The Shape of Water" is the first in a series of Inspector Montalbano mysteries, only recently translated to English. I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised by interesting characters, a mystery I didn't figure out in advance, and a protaganist with many layers, who is serious, intelligent, self-depracating, and quite funny!
The story begins with the discovery by 2 garbagemen of a local politician, dead in a car, with his pants around his ankles. Detective work in Sicily is quite different than what you would expect in the US. But Inspector Montalbano performs his job largely independent of supervision and is fairly free to follow up in whatever way he pleases.
The pace is relaxed, and the book does not have your typical action-adventure style. Everything is revealed in a very matter of fact style in a storytelling manner, rather than one action scene to the next. Not to worry though, there are plenty of questions to be answered here, and Montalbano gets to them in his own good time. He manages to fit in a love interest, and some fantastic gourmet food as he goes about his days. His gastronomic interests are amusing in themselves.
I don't want to go on about the story itself here, it might spoil the surprises for the readers. Suffice to say this was a very enjoyable read, with plenty of plot twists, that will make you want to read the rest of the series. Highly recommended to mystery lovers.
Rating: 
Summary: slow start, strong finish
Review: As I began reading the Shape of Water, I had difficulty "getting into" the story - simply put, it dragged. However, perseverence won out, and I am glad it did; the story picked up nicely about 1/4 of the way into the book as the plot thickened. It concluded strongly with a marvelously sinister twist at the end. I'm glad I stuck with it. At no point did I find the book funny - as a previous reviewer mentioned, this may be the result of a weak translation. I suspect the plodding first few chapters are similarly the result of poor translating. However, I did enjoy the way in which food was frequently refered to in the book, its prominence typcially Italian. In the final analysis, The Shape of Water is good, but not great. The story line is tight, and the plot will keep you riveted. But I can't help but think that the book may be better in the original Italian.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful new voice
Review: Camilleri writes well, tells a good story and is worth every penny this costs. I look forward to the translation of all his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent read, but why so vulgar?
Review: I bought the first three of Camilleri's books, mostly to read on a vacation in Sicily. I'd done the same with Donna Leon's books on a trip to Venice and enjoyed mixing fiction and setting. But I found these books less enjoyable.
The stories are in themselves mostly enjoyable, with some particularly clever parts, but all three were quite vulgar, with generous doses of very crude sexual and homosexual banter. It seemed so contrived and stereotypically alpha-male macho, and did not add to the story or the characters. I can accept that a certain amount of this kind of thing might find it's way into stories involving pimps, prostitutes, murders, mafioso, and the like, but it just didn't add to the story at all, and seemed more out of place in otherwise well written story. Is this here to titilate us? Spare me, please.
I did go ahead and read all three, so it wasn't enough to stop me from reading what I'd brought along, but I won't buy any more.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, poor translation?
Review: I don't understand why so many reviews of this book describe it as funny. I never laughed out loud, and only rarely smiled while reading this book. I enjoyed it, but so many times the dialog seemed stilted (I would think, 'who the hell talks like that?', which is a distraction while reading). The narrative parts seemed poorly translated as well, but not knowing italian and therefor not having read the original, I can't say for sure. But since I approached it as light summer reading, these flaws did not detract too much (not nearly as much as the poor editting of some american light reading).
Rating:
Summary: Hard to put down, looking forward to more of Montalbano
Review: I read this particular book in about 3 sittings, and had to stay up late to finish, just because I could see how it was ending, but needed to tie up the loose ends. Montalbano is a great character, complex background, cool attitude, good occasional wise-crack. As others have said, the Sicilian way of life is well-presented, as are various Italian and Italy references that may be lost on someone who isn't familiar with either (glossary in the back). But for the most part, you can get by not knowing exactly all of it. There's no way you can't know what "Shape of Water" means if you have read the book...it's defined in a conversation between two central characters. To disclose it here would ruin the storyline. Having read many European authors, I can see why this author is all the rage in Europe. Book Magazine rated this one of the best mysteries of 2002, and I tend to agree. My only complaints are that it was too short, and too fast of a read!
Rating:
Summary: A breath of fresh, Sicilian air!
Review: I've read so much that's good about the work of author Andrea Camilleri (a citizen of Rome, now age "70 ", author of screenplays for Italian television, producer and director for TV and the theater, and award-winning novelist and short story writer) that it was inevitable that I would find the time to start his "Inspector Montalbano" series with "A Shape of Water". I must admit I'm puzzled as to how the title ties into the story, but know this -- I probably won't stop until I've read them all. At this point, 4 of the 7 novels have been translated into English. First published in 1994, this novel has been translated into 8 languages, and began to circulate in English in 2002. The translator, American Stephen Sartarelli, does a fine job, and, although there is a breakdown from time to time in sentence structure, Sartarelli provides three dozen notes in the back of the book, to help Americans understand Sicilian customs and culture. This goes a long way to breaking down the barriers to the book. Synopsis of the plot: In a grotesque death, Sicilian politician and wealthy engineer Silvio Luparello, is found in a remote "pasture", or the equivalent of a lonely stretch of land where prostitutes ply their trade in their clients' cars. Garbagemen find the car, and the body, with its pants around its knees, and we are immediately struck by how much effort is expended to downplay the incident and cover up the cause of death. Into this mess comes well-respected middle-aged Inspector Salvo Montalbano, a life-long resident of the fictional Sicilian coastal town of Vigata. The novel follows Montalbano's clever and well-manuevered search for the truth; letting the reader meet local politicians, Montalbano's friends and colleagues, the family of the dead man, and a mysterious and roundheeled woman who races cars for a living, and is somehow entangled in Luparello's death. In a sidebar, Montalbano also makes the acquaintance of the garbagemen, and learns of a serious healthcare crisis with the child of one of them. As he researches the case, Montalbano breaks a lot of rules, but delicately, becomes chagrined over the affections of a young police officer (the daughter of his old friend), makes time to woo his own love, Livia, in Genoa, and flies under the radar of town leaders, religious leaders and his superior officers, all of whom want him to close the case quickly, and admit that Luparello dies of natural causes. The reader develops an appreciation for Montalbano's subtlety, and his art in acquiring delicious food from friends, restaurants, and his own kitchen...Montalbano loves a good meal. The cynicism and humor are subtle here, poking gentle fun at Sicilian political customs, such as a killing where everyone hopes the death was a Mafia hit, so that they don't have to search for the real cause. Having not yet read the remaining books, I believe that they probably succeed in developing tighter story lines, and allowing us to build on Montalbano's quaint idiosyncracies. Hopefully, they'll include more of his childhood friend, Gege, who is now Vigata's leading pimp... "Salvo and Gege were listless schoolboys, learning their lessons like parrots".....(now as adults)..Gege: "And I tell you in my own interest. Because for a big cheese like Luparello to come and croak at the Pasture, isn't good for business....Can I go now? These are peak hours at the Pasture." Camilleri succeeds in zigzagging around in a satisfactory way, opening our eyes to the culture and humor of the Sicilians. One word of note, this work, and probably that of the following novels, is graphic in the use of foul language and sexual situations. If this bothers you, you're not going to want to read on. I'm definitely impressed and am going on to read the next books in series, with the hope that the international audience is right...Camilleri just keeps getting better and better.
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