Gold, Frankincense and Dust - Valerio Varesi

Parma is shrouded in autumnal mist.   Commissario Franco Soneri is called to a body found on the verge of the autosrada, where there has been a multi-vehicle pile-up.   A lorry-load of bulls have broken loose and there is a Roma camp close by.   The body has been badly and deliberately burnt.

The victim turns out to be a beautiful young Romanian girl with links to the Roma people.  She operated under various names and had a string of well-off older lovers who have different perspectives on her character.   Whilst they certainly give her presents, she is not a prostitute.   Her day job seems to have been cleaning for a specialist firm of goldsmiths.   She was, however, having an intense affair with the husband of the proprietor and was three months pregnant by him.

Soneri investigates at a leisurely pace.  We are gently introduced to the unique working of the Italian crime and judicial system.   The book was written in 2007 and it is therefore just about credible that a middle-aged commissario like Soneri should still be immune to technological advances.   Soneri does things old-style.   He believes that coincidences happens, that people are fallible, and all will become clear in the end.   His private life is going through a troubled time, so he increases his visits to local bars and trattoria.  He meets a down-at-heel marchese whose aristocratic demeanour gets him carte blanche for his eccentricities.   He too is one of nature's philosophers and his interactions with Soneri are highlights of the story.

I was reminded of Camilleri's Mantalbano novels.  The focus on food, regionality, character - alongside a wry commentary of the current state of affairs.   Reading it was pure pleasure.   I'm no expert on translations from the Italian but I will certainly keep an eye out for translator Joseph Farrell's versions of Dario Fo's plays.  In fact I think I might Google them now...

An Uncertain Place - Fred Vargas

I've been keeping an eye out for Vargas's work for a while.  She is said to be one of non-Scandinavian Europe's foremost crime writers.  An Uncertain Place is one of her Commissaire Adamsberg series.  I was looking forward to reading it.

It started well - severed feet ostensibly trying to 'walk' into Highgate Cemetery in London.  The thing is, though, a preposterous 'hook' only works if you can provide a thoroughly sensible explanation.  And Vargas doesn't.  The plot gets more and more ludicrous as it proceeds.  I won't give the game away because Vargas clearly has fans - but it wasn't for me.  The writing had an ephemeral quality, not unlike Hakan Nesser or Andrea Camilleri, but both those guys manage to anchor themselves with decent plots.  I only finished reading An Uncertain Place over the weekend and already I've forgotten who did it and, indeed, what it was they did.

Not for me.

Rounding the Mark - Andrea Camilleri

Camilleri is the inspiration for aspiring writers of a certain age.  He didn't start writing seriously until he was 67 and didn't create the bestselling Inspector Montalbano until he was 69.  Now 87 he has 19 Montalbano novels and a shedload of other publications to his name.

The advantage of starting late is that your attitudes and opinions are fully developed.  Camilleri is Sicilian, left wing, a little curmudgeonly (he has a secondary career as a TV political pundit) and fond of his grub.  All those characteristics apply to his novels though not necessarily his protagonist.  Salvo Montalbano seems to have no political views, other than all politicians are crooks, and whilst he can be grouchy, he is more altruistic than misanthropic.  We know him from the TV adaptations but we should not confuse Salvo with the actor who plays him (which is odd, because Camilleri's working life was as a TV director for RAI, who now make the TV movies).  Salvo, for example, isn't bald.

The novels, of which Rounding the Mark is the seventh, originally published in Italy in 2003, are formulaic, but it is a formula of Camilleri's devising.  Like Simenon, Camilleri has created his own paradigm.  Salvo's eating regime is therefore slightly more important than his love life, albeit his love life is adventurous for a man of his age;  we know more about what he eats than about his police career; we have comic Catarella, crown prince of the malapropism; Mimi, Fazio, the commissioner who is always somewhere else and his machiavellian bag-carrier Doctor Lattes.  Montalbano stumbles through the case, solving it almost by accident.  And throughout we have a running commentary on Italian politics - wholly disparaging - as it happened while Camilleri was writing.

In Rounding the Mark Montalbano literally bumps up against the murder victim whilst swimming in the sea outside his house.  He plans to resign just as soon as the commissioner can see him but forgets all about it when a six-year-old African boy runs away from yet another boatload of illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile longterm girlfriend Livia is only a phone presence from Genoa, whilst the racy Ingrid Sjostrom is on Montalbano's doorstep looking for adventure.

The Montalbano novels are unique.  You either love them or hate them.  I enjoy wolfing them down in the same way Salvo scarfs down a strascinasali.   Rounding the Mark was as good as any.  You cannot underestimate the translation skills of American poet Stephen Sartarelli in bringing Camilerri to the wider world.