Andrea Camilleri gets better with each book about his ageing detective Montalbano. Set in a fictitious city in the southern part of Italy, the tale is a slice of life of those who live far from Rome, comfortable in their prejudices and their contempt for politicians.

Andrea Camilleri gets better with each book about his ageing detective Montalbano. Set in a fictitious city in the southern part of Italy, the tale is a slice of life of those who live far from Rome, comfortable in their prejudices and their contempt for politicians.

As usual, the rich are treated differently and the best cops are put on the trail of their killers.

Montalbano is called to the scene of a shooting and discovers the body of an ex-doctor. The circumstances suggest that it was a sexual killing - which throws the detective off the track. Montalbano soon realises that the killers are playing with him and starts to look into the man's life and his relationships.

Gradually, he narrows the list of suspects to the dead man's sister and his mistress. There are a lot of red herrings along the way before he manages to solve the case, which becomes complicated when it leads him to the death of prominent politicians aligned to the Mafia. Montalbano has to tread carefully where the Mafia are concerned - but he refuses to wrap up the murder inquiry until he is satisfied he had jailed the killer.