Search - The Patience of the Spider (Inspector Montalbano, Bk 8)

First Line: He jolted awake, sweaty and short of breath.

Still recuperating from the events which occurred in Rounding the Mark, Salvo Montalbano is called back to work when a young woman is kidnapped. The investigation has the added bonus of giving him something to think about other than his own mortality. Unable to let his colleagues handle the case themselves, Montalbano finds himself focusing on very subtle clues, such as the direction in which the kidnapped woman's motorbike is pointed, and it doesn't take him long to believe that this case has more to do with extortion than it does kidnapping.

Although I love this series and enjoyed the book, it is a weaker entry in the series. The plot machinations leading up to the identity of the kidnapper were rather transparent, and there was a bit too much of Montalbano's solo ponderings and not enough of his excellent (and hilarious) team. There was also a bit too much of Livia in this one. I don't appreciate Livia as much as others might; it seems she flies into town just to argue with Montalbano, and I've never been a fan of prima donnas and fighting.

Be that as it may, this is still one of my favorite mystery series, and I can't wait to read Montalbano's next adventure!

This is the 8th police procedural feature the ornery, highly strung, intuitive Inspector Salvo Montalbano, who is a detective in the fictional town of Marinella in contemporary Sicily. This one finds him recovering from a round he took in the shoulder in the novel Rounding the Mark. Though on sick leave, he is called in to assist in getting back the kidnapped, blond, blue-eyed Susanna Mistretta, a university student and daughter of a geologist whose wife is dying. A good-enough plot, funny asides about Italian bureaucracy and corruption, and vivid characters such as the bumbling Catarella. Not so much guzzling and gorging in this one, mercifully, and the translator has provided really interesting notes.

Ho Hum. I knew half-way through the book what happened - it's very predictable, the clues given are far too easy.