The Terracotta Dog opens with a mysterious tete-a-tete with a Mafioso some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist & some dying words that lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers dead fifty years & still embracing are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog. Montalbanos passion to solve this old crime takes him heedless of personal danger on a journey through the islands past & into a familys dark heart amid the horrors of World War II. Andrea Camilleris Inspector Salvo Montalbano has garnered millions of fans worldwide with his sardonic engaging take on Sicilian small-town life & his genius for deciphering the most enigmatic of crimes. The novels of Andrea Camilleri breath out the sense of place the sense of humour & the sense of despair that fill the air of Sicily. To read him is to be taken to that glorious tortured island Donna Leon Both farcical & endearing Montalbano is a cross between Columbo & Chandlers Philip Marlowe with the added culinary idiosyncrasies of an Italian Maigret Guardian