{"id":5245,"date":"2015-05-06T18:12:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T22:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=5245"},"modified":"2021-06-04T13:13:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T17:13:46","slug":"the-terra-cotta-dog-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5245","title":{"rendered":"The Terra-Cotta Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Terra-Cotta Dog<\/a><\/em> (1996\/2004) Andrea Camilleri<\/a> translated by Stephen Sartarelli<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The second Montalbano book was, according the Camilleri, was supposed to be the last. <\/p>\n

I felt less than fully satisfied with how the figure of Montalbano had come out. I felt as if I had painted an incomplete portrait of him, favoring his role as a detective while neglecting certain aspects of his character. In short, he seemed only half resolved. And it bothered me a lot to leave him unfinished. I always try to bring everything I start to completion. <\/p>\n

And so, out of sort of concern for craft, I decided to write a second novel on this police inspector and thereby conclude my brief career as a mystery writer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Montalbano is called by his old friend Gege for a meeting. When Gege tells him that the mafioso Tano wants to meet him, only Montalbano’s long history with Gege sends him to the meeting.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a local supermarket is robbed of it’s recent delivery, except that the loot appears later, in a truck abandoned by the side of the road.<\/p>\n

PLUS(!), we are introduced to Catarella. I was correct in my memory that Montalbano didn’t like Catarella at all at first.<\/p>\n

This Catarella was frankly hopeless. Slow to think and slow to act, he had been hired by the police because he was a distant relative of the formerly all-powerful Chamber Deputy Cusumano.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m very glad that Catarella gets reformed. Well, not really reformed, but rather that Montalbano eventually develops an affection for him.<\/p>\n

And even on the second reading, it’s still fascinating how policing works in Italy.<\/p>\n

They had an unwritten understanding with the National Police. Whoever arrived first at the scene of a crime would shout \u201cBingo!\u201d and take the case. This prevented meddling, polemics, elbowing, and long faces.
\nBut Fazio was gloomy. \u201cThey got here first.\u201d
\n\u201cSo what? What do you care? We\u2019re not paid by the corpse, on a job-by-job basis.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This story takes some strange twists, but is just as fascinating as the first.
\nRating: 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Published by Penguin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Terra-Cotta Dog (1996\/2004) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli The second Montalbano book was, according the Camilleri, was supposed to be the last. I felt less than fully satisfied with how the figure of Montalbano had come out. I felt as if I had painted an incomplete portrait of him, favoring his role as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,8,42,38],"tags":[94,95,54,435],"class_list":["post-5245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-5-10","category-mystery","category-police","category-translated","tag-andrea-camilleri","tag-inspector-montalbano","tag-italy","tag-stephen-sartarelli"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-1mB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":841,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/841","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":0},"title":"The Terra Cotta Dog","author":"Michelle","date":"November 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Terra Cotta Dog (1996) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartaelli In the second Inspector Salvo Montalbano book, Montalbano is called by his friend Gege--the head of local prostitution--to meet, because Gege has something he has been asked to discuss with Montalbano. From here, Montalbano is drawn into organized crime,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/Terra-Cotta-Dog.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4323,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4323","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":1},"title":"The Terra-Cotta Dog","author":"Michelle","date":"January 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Terra-Cotta Dog (1996\/2002) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli I was out of sorts yesterday and didn't know what I wanted to read. Since I recently read Montalbano's First Case, I decided I wanted to read some Andrea Camilleri--despite the fact that the first book in the series was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/Terra-Cotta-Dog.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5241,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5241","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":2},"title":"The Shape of Water","author":"Michelle","date":"May 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Shape of Water (1994\/2002) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli This is the first Inspector Montalbano story, and was supposed to be the only Montalbano story, however, the character got away from the author, and we now have many books to enjoy. \u201cInspector Montalbano? This is Mr. Luparello.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/SHape-of-Water.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4668,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4668","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":3},"title":"Angelica’s Smile","author":"Michelle","date":"June 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Angelica's Smile (2010\/2014) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli \u201cAh Chief, Chief! Ahh Chief!\u201d Catarella's cry pretty much describes how I feel about this book. Ah Chief, how you've fallen. A strange series of burglaries has hit Vitaga. Burgulars break into a vacation home, gas the couple sleeping there, then,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Angelicas-Smile.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5248,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/5248","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":4},"title":"The Snack Thief","author":"Michelle","date":"May 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Snack Thief (1996\/2003) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli Obviously, Camilleri didn't stop after the second book, so we have the third in the series, which finds Montalbano investigating the stabbing death of an elderly man, while elsewhere, a fisherman is shot to death in a typically international incident\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Snack-Thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":851,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/851","url_meta":{"origin":5245,"position":5},"title":"The Snack Thief","author":"Michelle","date":"December 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Snack Thief (1996) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli The third book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series finds Montalbano investigating a man found murdered in an elevator, while Augello investigates a shooting on a fishing boat that left a Tunisian dead--shot ostensibly by a Tunisian police boat claiming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Snack-Thief.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}