The Treasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri

A disturbing puzzle is solved amid chaos and comedy

The Treasure Hunt is the 16th
in the Montalbano series

The story begins with Gregorio and Caterina, two elderly people who are brother and sister, reported to be shooting at the people in the piazza below their apartment to ‘punish them for their sins’.

News cameras later film Inspector Montalbano, with his gun in hand, scaling the building to try to capture the deranged pair. Afterwards, when order has been restored, he is hailed as a hero by everyone.

But a few days later, he starts to receive messages in bad verse from an anonymous person challenging him to take part in a treasure hunt.

While trying to work out who is sending the sinister poems, Montalbano also has to lead his men in a hunt to find a beautiful young woman who has been reported missing by her distraught father.

The reader joins Montalbano on the trail through the sunny Sicilian streets, where he meets some eccentric characters and constantly finds himself in hilarious situations.

And from the descriptions of dishes on the menu at Enzo’s trattoria, or the meals cooked by the Inspector’s housekeeper, Adelina, eaten on his terrace overlooking the beach, you can almost smell the Sicilian food that the inspector enjoys along the way.

But all the time the clock is ticking, as the officers race to find the missing woman before she comes to any harm, and the Inspector becomes concerned about the increasingly sinister clues for the treasure hunt that he keeps receiving.

Camilleri died in 2019. He is
buried in Rome's Non-Catholic
cemetery in Testaccio

Montalbano also has to put up with irate phone calls from his long-distance girlfriend, Livia, who is jealous of his friendship with a beautiful Swedish woman, Ingrid.

On top of this, there is interference from his boss, the Commissioner, and the mangled speech of his officer, Catarella, when he relays telephone messages to the Inspector, to contend with.

Only at the end of the book, when Montalbano has put himself at great risk to solve the disappearance of the young woman, does everything  fall into place and the shooting spree carried out by the elderly brother and sister finally make any sense.

Another great trip to Sicily in the company of Montalbano.

Buy TheTreasure Hunt by Andrea Camilleri

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