Game of Mirrors

Game of Mirrors (2011/2015) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli

I really enjoy these books. Inspector Montalbano is continuing to age, and continues to worry that he’s losing it (what “it” is, varies from book to book), which I am okay with, because it adds another dimension to his character.

He still lives for food.

Every arancino was as big as a large orange. For a normal person, two arancini would have constituted an already dangerous amount for dinner. Montalbano wolfed down four and a half.

There are always marvelous meals described. In fact, reading these books always makes me hungry.

He still fights regularly with Livia. (And I still don’t understand why they remain together.)

And Catarella is still Catarella.

“Ahh Chief Chief! Ahh Chief!”
This was the special litany that Catarella intoned whenever there’d been a call from Mr. C’mishner.
“Did the commissioner call?”
“Yessir, ’e did, not ten minutes ago. ’E wannit a talk t’yiz or Isspector Augello, an’ seein’ as how ya wasn’t onna premisses yet, I put the call true to Isspector Augello, ’oo was hisself onna premisses, afore ’e left immidiotly after talkin’ to him, him bein’ him, meanin’ the same one, hizzoner the c’mishner.”

For the first couple books I didn’t get Catarella at all. But as the series has progressed, he’s become one of my favorite characters.

He adores Montalbano, and is so open and sweet that being mad at him would be like being mad at a puppy. Catarella he does have his special skill set, which he gets to use once again in this book.

Like other books set in Italy, I remain amazed by how casually the Mafia and Mafia bombings and such are mentioned. They’re facts of life and nothing to get excited about, which continues to boggle my mind.

One thing I especially like about this version of the book is that the passages of note (Stephen Sartarelli has always had comments about specific translations or foods or sayings) are underlined, and clicking on them brings up that little bit.

That’s really quite lovely, since normally I don’t read the notes until the end of the book. This time I got to read things like this:

sartù di riso alla calabrisa: A variant on a Neapolitan dish, sartù di riso alla calabrese belongs to the southern Italian tradition of pasta al forno, except that it uses rice instead. Like those baked pasta dishes, it features a great variety of ingredients, including pork, beef, peas, meatballs, eggs, sorpressata, tomato sauce, provolone cheese, pecorino cheese, bread crumbs, onions, and so on. When it is finished, it is removed from the casserole and looks rather like a large cake of rice. In Calabria it is often served as the main course on Fat Tuesday, at the start of Lent.

in situ, which was marvelous.

And now I’m hungry again.

As this series continues, the mystery becomes almost secondary to the food and just watching what Montalbano will do.
Rating: 7.5/10

Published by Penguin

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