Reviews for Rounding the Mark (Inspector Montalbano Series #7)

The average rating for Rounding the Mark (Inspector Montalbano Series #7) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-12-21 00:00:00 Sergio Salas Rating: 4* of five The Publisher Says: The earthy and urbane Sicilian detective Inspector Montalbano casts his spell on more and more fans with each new mystery from Andrea Camilleri. Two seemingly unrelated deaths form the central mystery of Rounding the Mark. They will take Montalbano deep into a secret world of illicit trafficking in human lives, and the investigation will test the limits of his physical, psychological, and moral endurance. Disillusioned and no longer believing in the institution he serves, will he withdraw or delve deeper into his work? My Review: Montalbano, over fifty and not liking it One Little Bit, decides to take an early-morning, out-of-season swim...and runs smack-dab into a dead guy who's clearly been in the water for a long time. He improvises a tow rope out of his swimsuit for the poor bastard, and begins a long, tiring naked swim in the cold water to bring him to shore. He's exhausted and feeling very lightheaded after his exertions and collapses on the sand...where he is attacked and vilified by a crazy old couple from the North who're renting a neighbor's house, photographed au naturel by the paparazzi they've summoned, and generally made a figure of fun...fifty yards from his own home. Thus begins Montalbano's misadventure into the seamiest-yet part of Sicily's underbelly. The dead guy proves to be a murder victim, identified in an extremely surprising way by an extremely unexpected source; Montalbano's interference in an illegal-immigrant bust results in the death of a young child; and in the end, both are revealed to be major pieces in a puzzle that bedevils Italy, with its immense amounts of coastline and huge population of coastal islands, most among European nations: How can you prevent a flood-tide of economic migrants from sheltering the vilest, most despicable members of our species from profiting off the misery of their masses? True to life itself, the question is posed, the answer left unknown. But Montalbano, now, he solves his piece of the puzzle, and a few...not many, just a few...of the scumbags meet a just end. Well, in the seventh book of the series, there is a bit of sagging to report: A few promising threads are left dangling here, especially the whole North-vs-South cultural divide so present in every facet of Italian life. Camilleri fails to exploit some delightful possibilities, and I think that it's inevitable to do so in a long-for-him book crammed with major plot points and huge moral questions. Part of the charm of these books is their conciseness: seldom over 230pp in translation, they are models of taut storytelling. Then along comes a story like this one, replete with opportunities to explore Italy and Italianness, and it's too much for the format of the series. It's unwise to change formats mid-series, so some things will fall off the radar a little too quickly. So what, the nigglers say, you still give the book four stars...what's that about, fanboy? Not just about being a fanboy, though I admit that I am just that. It's about the layers of well-executed prose, conveying piece by piece the existence of and resolution to a problem previously hidden, in concert with a storyteller's greatest gift or lack: The ability to create, in a few deft verbal strokes, a sense of a character as a real person. The ability to evoke in the reader a new response to an old situation. The ability to bring a place to life using nothing more than a few lighting effects and your own sense of smell. These qualities, mes vieux, are amply on display in this book and deployed in service of a story that, even though it's resolved, isn't in any way over. And that should keep you awake nights.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-12-05 00:00:00 John West i love reading camilleri thrillers. he is smart, funny . he have a great sense of sicily with all the beauty cruelty and lough in this amazing island