Anders Monsen

Lost worlds and ports of call

Tag: Montalbano

And so ends 2021

January 1, 2022 /

I read three books this past week. One was crap, one was so-so, and one fantastic. All were part of a series, so to speak.

First up was Smoke and Whispers, by Mick Herron. I’d read and enjoyed several of his Zöe Boehm books, about a cynical detective in Oxford. This was apparent the last one in that series, and in it Boehm is supposedly dead. Not a great start. The alternate protagonist, a friend of Boehm’s, tries to determine whether Boehm really is dead or not. If she’s dead, who killed her, and if she’s not dead, what happened. It was a so-so book; I preferred the books from the viewpoint of Boehm, so I never really got on the side of the main protagonist. If the author decides to kill a decent character as the premise of the novel, it’s a strange situation. I suppose Herron grew tired of his creation, and moved on to other things. He has a decent MI5 series, though he’ll probably kill off those characters, too.

The crap book was by Andrea Camilleri, called Riccardino. It was his last published book in the Inspector Montalbano series, though written more than 15 years ago. I can see why it was held back, as Camilleri blends meta-fiction with fatigue, and the whole thing fizzles out at the end as if he painted himself into a corner and lazily gave up. Disappointing. Having read all of the other Montalbano books, I was hoping for something else, but this book left a bad taste in my mind.

On the other hand, I read and enjoyed The Red Horse, by James R. Benn. This is the 15th book in his WWII series, centering around Boston detective Billy Boyle, whose a distant (fictional) nephew of General Eisenhower. I read the first book (aptly titled, Billy Boyle) a few years ago, and have read most of them in order, but really as I found them. Some older books I had to hunt down, but the more recent ones I’ve picked up as they reach they softcover edition. This means waiting a year or more after initial publication, so I’ll need to wait until the Fall of 2022 for the next book, and then 2023 for the newly announced 17th in the series.

The Red Horse takes place mostly in a hospital for recovering special agents. It’s sort of a take on The Prisoner, and the source material was taken partially from the co-creator of The Prisoner, a fascinating concept. In this book, Billy Boyle is recovering from the traumatic events of the previous novel: the horror of the liberation of France, the fighting in Paris, and the betrayal of his true love. As is typical with detective books, dead bodies pile up around him. The book is a slow burn, tense from the start, and one of the best in the series. All of Benn’s books are well-researched and make the events of WWII vivid in all respects, covering multiple areas of the world. I look forward to reading the next ones, should I have that chance.

That’s 2021 over with. This year (in books) re-kindled my interest in Robert R. McCammon’s fiction. I read a bunch of books published by the Soho Crime imprint, reread (as usual) a few Jack Vance books, and picked up a handful of small press books. I made two trips to Houston and visited Murder by the Book, the best mystery book store so far I’ve ever visited (just beating out The Mysterious Bookshop in New York); I really enjoy specialty book stores. Book store in general are a vanishing breed. I’ve tried to cull my books, as I have no shelf space, but to no avail. For every book I remove, I add five more, despite trying not to buy as much.

Montalbano, the final book

December 29, 2021 /

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.

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