The Safety Net (Inspector Montalbano mysteries Book 25)
£4.70
Set on the coast of Sicily, The Safety Net is the twenty-fifth novel in the bestselling Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri.
***Adapted for BBC4’s Inspector Montalbano series***
Vigàta is bustling as the new filming location for a Swedish television series set in 1950. In the production frenzy, the director asks the locals to track down movies and vintage photos to faithfully recreate the air of Vigàta at that time. Meanwhile, Montalbano is grappling with a double mystery, one that emerges from the past and another that leads him into the future . . .
Engineer Ernesto Sabatello, rummaging in the attic of his house, finds some films shot by his father between 1958 and 1963, always on the same day, 27th March, and always the same shot: the outside wall of a country house. Montalbano hears the story and, intrigued, begins to investigate its meaning.
Meanwhile, a middle school is threatened by a group of armed men, and a closer look at the case finds Montalbano looking into the students themselves and delving into the world of social media.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Mantle (2 April 2020) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2006 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 304 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 1529035554 |
by E Evans
Montalbano’s Island is invaded by a film company making a production set in nineteen fifties Sicily. This, inevitably, annoys Montalbano, who dislikes the fakeness of it all. It does however bring a clutch of attractive actresses to the island to Mimi Augello’s delight. But it seems his wife has finally had enough and is starting to call him out on his infidelities.
In the meantime Montalbano is asked to investigate an intriguing mystery – why did a man’s late father take a photo of the same piece of wall on the same date every year? This is pretty much the only mystery until half way through the book when armed men burst into Mimi’s son’s class and threaten the children, leading Montalbano into the unfamiliar territory of social media and the internet.
As this series has progressed it seems to have got less ‘Sicilian’. This one drifts along in a satisfactory way until the reveal on the two cases (which to be honest you can see coming).
That said I loved being back with Montalbano and crew and am very aware that there cannot be many more books left in the series. Maybe not a good reason to give it four stars, but I’m going to anyway because I read it slowly since I didn’t want it to end and I shall certainly be reading the next one.
by Phil Webster
What better way to escape from the current Coronavirus lockdown than to transport yourself for a few hours to Montalbano’s Sicily with this latest book by the now sadly deceased Andrea Camilleri?
I rate this as one of the most enjoyable Montalbanos. It has all the usual elements of Camilleri’s Montalbano formula:
(1) Montalbano’s quirky personality.
(2) The interplay between him and his team.
(3) Lots of humour.
(4) The occasional critical social comment from Camilleri’s left-leaning perspective.
In the TV version we also get:
(5) The beautiful Sicilian scenery.
I’m a great fan of Montalbano, but not an uncritical one. A couple of Camilleri’s books have felt like he was going through the motions; a couple have contained themes or scenes which were too dark or distasteful for my liking; and a couple have contained irritating paranormal incidents. But there was nothing that spoiled this one for me.
There are two strands to the plot, and both of them are unusual and intriguing. I really wanted to read on and on. Like in a couple of his other books, one of the strands involves events going back decades. And Camilleri has some interesting things to say about our smartphone-addicted society. But I’m not going to spoil things by saying anything else about the plot.
Escape for a while to Montalbano’s world!
PS:
I’m adding a postscript after reading an interesting point made by another reviewer. That reviewer is not happy about the accents that translator Stephen Sartarelli gives to Catarella and Adelina.
When I read a Montalbano novel for the first time several years ago, I too felt doubtful about those accents. I thought at first that Sartarella was using the sort of corny, stereotyped language that writers often condescendingly put into the mouths of working class characters.
But I soon realised that this was not the case. What Sartarelli is actually doing is carrying out the difficult task of translating Camilleri’s original Italian editions, in which:
(1) Adelina’s Italian is of a rough and ready working class type, with lots of grammatical errors.
(2) Both Adelina and Catarella use a lot of Sicilian dialect. (I’ve had a go at reading some stories in the original Italian, and Camilleri’s use of Sicilian dialect makes them difficult.)
(3) Catarella is a clownish character whose linguistic confusion is used for comic effect.
So Sartarelli is actually making a good job of a difficult task. Once you get tuned into it, this language adds to the humour – unless Catarella-ish humour doesn’t appeal to you, of course.
Phil Webster.
by Kai Rabenstein
Sadly this is The End Of The Line for Inspector Montalbano, as the author’s death last year means no further Sicilian whodunnits will flow from his prolific pen.
But thankfully this final instalment is a good one: Two parallel mysteries occupy Montalbano – one in the present and one set in 1957. As always the writing is deceptively simple, the local flavours are strong (and as per usual annotated by Stephen Saltarelli, the translator), and the plotting is somewhat twisted.
Besides the usual protagonists, even a former romantic flame appears in a small supporting role (like many avid fans I have long held out the hope that Salvo’s arid love life with Genoa resident Livia would be superseded by a more enlivening relationship but Camilleri has – perhaps in disdain of Italy’s obsession with romance and sex -consistently underemphasised his hero’s emotional entanglements).
The tragedies decoded by the dogged inspector are classic examples of the human condition, and while the story is leavened by a comedic show business element, whistfulness prevails even as the main threads are artfully woven to produce a broadly happy ending.
The reader is left hoping that Italian TV will see its way to putting Luca Zingarelli through his paces in filming the final episodes in the gorgeous townscapes of the Noto Valley in a suitably entertaining fashion – and to perhaps book a B&B stay in the TV inspector’s house in Marina di Ragusa (Marinella) through AirBnB …
by Gee
I always love the Montalbano stories. I’ve sometimes watched the TV series but much prefer to read them because they’re much more absorbing that way and you can enjoy the humour more. Catarella
was particularly amusing in this one and also important to the plot as Montalbano had to consult him for technical advice. There were two cases to be solved this time; I guessed one of them but the other was more intriguing, exploring the impact of the internet on crime but also on the lives of young people, to the gentle bemusement of Salvo. All great fun and, set in sunny Sicily, wonderful escapism for a few hours!
by Kindle Customer
I guessed the two solutions early on. Regarding the shooting, once those involved were questioned, surely the truth that Montalbano wanted hidden, would come out. A pleasant read though.