The Sicilian Method

In The Sicilian Method, Andrea Camilleri's twenty-sixth novel in the Inspector Montalbano mystery series, Montalbano finds his answers to a murder in a theatrical play.

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. Are the two deaths connected? Catalanotti scrupulously kept notes and comments on all the actors he worked with as well as strange notebooks full of figures, dates and names . . .

Inspector Montalbano finds all of Catalanotti's dossiers and plays, the notes on the characters and the notes on his final drama, Dangerous Turn. It is in the theatre where he feels the solution lies.

About the Author

Andrea Camilleri was one of Italy’s most famous contemporary writers. The Inspector Montalbano series, which has sold over 65 million copies worldwide, 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 was also the author of the historical comic mysteries Hunting Season and The Brewer of Preston. He died in Rome in July 2019.