The Shape of Water is the first in Andrea Camilleri's wry, brilliantly compelling Sicilian crime series, featuring Inspector Montalbano. This edition with a stunning redesigned cover. The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash-strewn site still known as the Pasture. Now local enterprise of a different sort flourishes: drug dealers and prostitutes of every flavour. But their discreet trade is upset when two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture. The coroner's verdict is death from natural causes - refreshingly unusual for Sicily. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano, as honest as he is streetwise and as scathing to fools and villains as he is compassionate to their victims, is not ready to close the case - even though he's being pressured by Vigata's police chief, judge, and bishop. Picking his way through a labyrinth of high-comedy corruption, delicious meals, vendetta firepower, and carefully planted false clues, Montalbano can be relied on, whatever the cost, to get to the heart of the matter. The Shape of Water is followed by the second in this phenomenal series, The Terracotta Dog.

Author Biography

Andrea Camilleri is one of Italy's most famous contemporary writers. His books have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. He lives in Rome. The Inspector Montalbano series, which began with The Shape of Water, has been translated into thirty-two languages and was adapted for Italian television, screened on BBC4. The Potter's Field, the thirteenth book in the series, was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger for the best crime novel translated into English. In addition to his phenomenally successful Inspector Montalbano series, he is also the author of the historical comic mysteries Hunting Season and The Brewer of Preston.