Book Review: The Snack Thief

Reviewed By: Cheryl - RAM

The Snack Thief     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Andrea Camilleri
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Series: Inspector Montalbano # 3

Inspector Montalbano is back, struggling again to find a moral - and survivable - route through his daily life, dealing with criminals and co-workers. As in other of Camilleri's books, the plot begins with two apparently unrelated crimes. Montalbano's investigation uncovers further crimes, and explores the unexpected relationships among them, and determines, to his satisfaction, at least, the responsibility for them.

Montalbano is a deeply moral man. He is quite aware of many of his personal weaknesses, particularly the self-centeredness that mars some of his personal relationships, most noticeably, his relationship with Livia. He has other blind spots, and one of the subplots centres on the question of whether, having harshly criticized someone for a personal fault, he will be able to recognize and overcome the same fault in himself. Montalbano develops morally, but remains a flawed and believable man.

Of course, Montalbano also solves the crimes and, if he does not achieve justice, he at least produces a result everyone, particularly the innocent Francois, can live with. This is as much as can be hoped for in his world. Moreover, he manages an excellent solution to a problem many fictional police detectives have - how to avoid being promoted to a desk job, which would prevent them from carrying out the work they love!

This is another excellent, enjoyable book in the series. It tends to focus on Montalbano - other characters, especially women, are not well-developed. But Montalbano is complex and interesting enough to carry the novel. Like the other books in the series, this reads well in English, and although there are explanatory notes in the back, and sometimes explanations of terms in the text, they do not detract from the enjoyment of the novel.

Cheryl - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Cheryl - RAM