It’s a bittersweet thought, coming to the end of Italian writer Andrea Camilleri’s last Montalbano book.

I was introduced to this writer almost a decade ago by my father. He lives in England, had read some of the books, watched some of the TV shows. I picked up one somewhere, at random, not knowing much about the author or the series. Since then I’ve searched high and low for all his books. Some I’ve found in used book stores, others more recently bought as they’re translated and published. They follow a standard formula, but I can’t put the down.

Camilleri died in 2019. By then he was already blind, dictating his last books. It’s an eerie parallel to the last books by Jack Vance, my favorite author, who also suffered from eye problems and dictated his last books. Camilleri was 93 when he died, Vance three years older at 96. Their styles of writing are vastly different. Both wrote mysteries, though Vance is more known for his SF and fantasy books.

It’s now the end of 2021, and I finally have Riccardino, the last Montalbano novel. Apparently it was written in 2005, with instructions to publish it after his death. Published a year after he died, this is an unusual step. When I last read the most recent Montalbano novel, The Cook of the Halcyon, it seemed that Montalbano was at a crossroads. What would happen in his life? How then, would a novel written over a decade ago, tie into that last novel?

At 254 pages, Riccardino is slightly longer than most Montalbano novels. My anticipation when I first started the novel was high. Why wait this long? How did it tie into other novels?

And then I read the book.

First, there was the blurb on the back cover, which mentioned the main character interacting with “the author.” Unlike any of his previous books in the series, Camilleri has avoided such a meta-novel, where the characters interact with the author. Not this one. It happens multiple times. It’s annoying, and dismisses everything previously written. The afterword almost has it makes sense. Camilleri thought it would be his last novel in the series, written when he was 80 years ago. That’s he write for another 11 years was then unthinkable. Maybe he saw reason and suppressed it for that reason. He should have burned it.

There are many frustrations with the Montalbano series: they are repetitive; they follow a formula; Livia: Montalbano’s long-distance girl-friend; many of the characters are annoying beyond belief. But, usually the plot (or multiple plots, interconnected in weird ways), are the main attraction. You sort of put up with the formula. Maybe you hope Montalbano finally moves on from Livia. He seems to do that a couple of times, but one ends in tragedy, the other in suspense.

So, Riccardino, which started off somewhat interesting (aside from the meta-fiction portion), falters at the end, devolving into some sort of brainstorming session between character and author. It then fades into nothingness. It’s a disappointing waste of time and money. Certainly not the way I wanted to remember the last Montalbano novel.