“Treasure Hunt”

Having just finished Donna Leon’s newest  Commissario Brunetti mystery set in Venice, I decided to stay in Italy ( I wish)  and read a recent Andrea Camilleri mystery.  To say that both of these mystery series are set in Italy is geographically true but culturally they are world’s apart.

Inspector Montalbano is the chief of a police force in a fictional Sicilian town.  Unlike Brunetti he is single and lives alone.  His girlfriend lives in northern Italy, and although they phone each other every day, they are seldom together.  Like Brunetti, Montalbano loves food.  Both Leon and Camilleri describe in detail the meals that each of these men eat.

Culturally the people who live in Venice and those that live in Sicily are very different.  Even the Italian they speak is different.  There is also a big class divide.

Montalbano is a very hands on kind of chief.  After he and his men apprehend two religious fanatics in a raid that is televised on Italian national TV, he is involved in a bizarre mystery involving a series of clues that result in a “Treasure Hunt.”