This case begins with a meeting with an old, high-ranking Mafioso who is looking for a way to retire but becomes a cold case dating back to WWII. Montalbano lives and works in Vigàta,a fictional town on the island of Sicily, and so organised crime in the form of the Mafia is often present in one form or another. This is made explicit in this, the second book in the series, as Montalbano is reading one of Carvalho’s cases, although he reflects that “in matters of taste he was closer to Maigret than to Pepe Carvalho…who stuffed himself with dishes that would have set a shark’s belly on fire”. Having already read several of Inspector Montalbano’s cases by the time I got the 100 Greatest Literary Detectives, when I came to the entry on Pepe Carvalho, a Spanish gourmand, created by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, I knew there had to be a connection given that Montalbano is always stuffing his face, often with seafood, described so lovingly that it even makes me hungry and I generally take my fish in fingers.
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