I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, but found the conclusion confusing. Maybe because I've seen the TV production several times and there it's different -- more straightforward. Camilleri does great with characters. ( )

The Shape of Water is a novel by Andrea Camilleri, the Sicilian crime writer who died less than a year ago, on July 17, 2019. I've never read any of his books before, but have read so many positive reviews that I decided to give it a try, and purchased a secondhand edition. I found it very difficult to get into, and tried and failed twice. On this third attempt, I got past the slow beginning and soon began to see why Camilleri's writing garners such praise.

A noted Sicilian man is found dead in the passenger seat of a BMW, pants down, in "The Pasture", a broken-down area where whores are readily available. It seems that he died of natural causes, however police inspector Salvo Montalbano is not convinced that all the pieces of the puzzle have been put together. And so goes the story - the investigation, the players, the secrets, the solution.

The Shape of Water is far more than a crime novel. It is heavily psychological, and it invokes the Sicilian scenery and people so vividly that I could see the landscape and the characters. It is a book rife with corruption, mafioso, murder, robbery, and yet the novel has a lightness of touch. Although I have only read one of these Montalbano stories, and a short one at that, I felt by the end of the book that I knew the man, that I understood him. It takes a rare writer to display such skill in a brief novel. I plan to search for the second book in the series tonight.

I liked the resolution and the way the story unfolded.
Detective feels a bit aloof, but likable. ( )

Fast pace, great characters, and a good mystery book. ( )

Having become addicted to the Inspector Montalbano series on TV, some time ago, I had bought one of the books that inspired the series. The Shape of Water is the first book in the series written by Camilleri and was the next unread book on my shelf. It was originally published in Italy in 1994 and translated into English in 2002. It is a murder mystery set in Sicily with plot twists a-plenty to keep the mystery reader amused. The body of a local politician is found inside a car at a lovers meeting spot on waste ground near the beach. He had recently had an operation for heart disease and apart from his trousers and pants being pulled down the autopsy stated he died of natural causes. Inspector Montalbano is advised by his superiors to wrap up the case as quickly as possible, but Montalbano wants to investigate more thoroughly.

It is difficult to imagine afresh a character from a book that one knows so well on TV and so of course I kept seeing the actor Luca Zingaretti in my mind as well as the camera shots of the Sicilian town featured on the show. In the book Inspector Montalbano is perhaps a bit more irascible than on the TV show. The book is a quick and entertaining read and perhaps there are a few too many information dumps, but it is nice to be able to 'almost' understand the resolution to the mystery. This series may well become my go-to series when the mood takes me. 3.5 stars ( )