Showing results by author "Stephen Sartarelli" in All Categories

Mimi Augello is visiting his lover when the woman's husband unexpectedly returns to the apartment. Hurriedly, he climbs out the window and into the downstairs apartment, but from one danger to another. In the dark he sees a body lying on the bed. Shortly afterwards another body is found and the victim is Carmelo Catalanotti, a director of bourgeois dramas with a harsh reputation for the acting method he developed for his actors: digging into their complexes to unleash their talent, a traumatic experience for all.

In Inspector Montalbano’s coastal town of Vigàta, a surge of migrants have been coming in by boat, and all the town’s hands are on deck to help the arrivals. At the heart of the scene are the police - on the lookout for the people smugglers responsible - and long night shifts are rendering Inspector Montalbano and his officers exhausted. Then one night, while Montalbano is enduring yet another gruelling stint at the port, a separate crime is committed - unexplained, unexpected, and unpleasant. Elena, the dressmaker at the town’s famous tailors, has been found dead....

Vigàta is bustling as the new filming location for a Swedish television series set in 1950. In the production frenzy, the director asks the locals to track down movies and vintage photos to faithfully recreate the air of Vigàta at that time. Meanwhile, Montalbano is grappling with a double mystery, one that emerges from the past and another that leads him into the future.

The lawyer and journalist Matteo Teresi discovers the existence of a secret sect whose members include priests, politicians, and regional VIPs. During the early morning hours, when the town’s churches are closed, the "Sect of the Angels" meets in the sacristy to carry out their holy office: initiating devout virgins into the rites of married life. Preying on their victims’ naivete, the hooded "elect" commit ignominious acts while promising the young women divine grace. In 1901, at a time of immense changes in Sicilian society, the scandal breaks nationwide.

After a hectic morning involving two rather irritating cases of mistaken identity, Inspector Montalbano finally arrives in his office ready find out what's troubling Vigàta this week. What he discovers is unnerving. A woman on her way home from work has been held up at gunpoint, chloroformed and kidnapped, but then released just hours later - unharmed and with all her possessions - into the open countryside. Later that day, Montalbano hears from Enzo, the owner of his favourite restaurant, that his niece has recently been the victim of the exact same crime.

A "wild west" tale of two brothers who battle both the state and a mafia empire in 1920s Italy, from famed Italian author Andrea Camilleri. Raffadali, province of Agrigento, 1920s. The Sacco brothers are free men with strong ideas about socialism and the state. Their lives change radically one morning when their father, Luigi Sacco, receives an anonymous letter from the local Mafia demanding protection money and is the victim of a robbery attempt. Luigi tells the police of the extortion letters he received, but the police don't know what to do.

Eugenio Bortuzzi has been named Prefect for Vigàta, a regional representative from the Italian government tasked to oversee the town. But the rowdy and unruly Sicilians don't care much for this rather pompous mainlander nor the mediocre opera he's hell-bent on producing in their new municipal theatre. The Brewer of Preston, it's called, and the Vigàtese are revving up to wreak havoc on the performance's opening night....

Sicily, April 16, 1677. From his deathbed, Charles III's viceroy, don Angel de Guzmàn, marquis of Castel de Roderigo, names his wife, donna Eleonora, as his successor. Eleonora di Mora is a highly intelligent and capable woman who immediately applies her political acumen to heal the scarred soul of Palermo, a city afflicted by poverty, misery, and the frequent uprisings they entail. The marquise implements measures that include lowering the price of bread and establishing stipends for young couples wishing to marry - all considered seditious by the conservative city fathers.