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After reviewing Camilleri's wonderful first novel, THE SHAPE OF WATER, (RTE 12/28/02), I especially wanted to read another of his books to see if he could sustain SHAPE's light-touch, full-of-grace-notes humor, as well as the delightful capsulated sketches of Sicily's people and places. Although VOICE OF THE VIOLIN is now the fourth in the Montalbano series, it's the second that I've read and is as good as any to use for a comparison. I'm not surprised that that the fourth does not live up to the first, but that's not a strike against VOICE OF THE VIOLIN because I doubt that anything could match THE SHAPE OF WATER. This illustrates a problem with a crime novel series, especially a series not built mainly on the characterizations of its regular players. Characterizations of people who appear in book after book can be developed up to a certain point before they start to cloy, but the outstanding features of THE SHAPE OF WATER were more its setting and its newness. Much of the charm of Camilleri's first novel was its spontaneity, its thumbnail revelations of a diversified tableau of incidental people, and its verisimilitude in showing a significant part of Italy known mainly to outsiders only by a series of misconceptions. Camilleri's problem is that of starting the series show with the best act. Nonetheless, VOICE OF THE VIOLIN is good, very good on its own. By chance Montalbano discovers a lovely, naked young woman suffocated in bed in her own house. Investigation shows that Michela Licalzi comes from Bologna, where she has both a rich husband and a boyfriend, and she has been furnishing her Sicilian house for a retreat. Michela's closest friend in Sicily was Anna, an attractive unattached 30ish woman, who takes a liking to Montalbano. The inspector's regular significant other, Livia, is still in Genoa, as she was in the first book, leaving the handsome police detective free for a dalliance, of which he had several in SHAPE. However, in VOICE, although he flirts with having an amorous liaison with Anna, nothing happens. In fact, the inspector's seriousness in all matters in the latest novel seems like a significant departure from his affable urbanity notable in SHAPE. The investigation gradually produces leads to various suspects as Montalbano fights the bureaucracy of the justice system up to the point of endangering his career. Fighting fire with fire, he overcomes the internal obstacles and solves his case. It's interesting that this sub-plot proved to be so suspenseful that I found myself reading it much faster than the rest of the normally laid-back, but always captivating, style of Camilleri. Actually, the whole book reads very fast (the sub-plot just reads faster), in part because it is short -- I would guess less than 60,000 words -- and in part because of Camilleri's storytelling ability and easy-going language. It's a delicious book to have with you when in a doctor's waiting room or elsewhere where you wish you had something to help pass time in a worthwhile manner. Worthwhile, because books such as these add to your overall knowledge of the world while giving you some most enjoyable relaxation. Note: According to the dustcover, the Montalbano series is now on Italian television. I hope we in English-speaking countries have a chance to see it, too.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, January 2004
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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