Riccardino - Andrea Camilleri

The Sunday Times bestselling, twenty-eighth and final novel in the thrilling, wickedly funny Inspector Montalbano Mysteries series by Andrea Camilleri.

When Inspector Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call it proves to be the start of a very trying day. For the caller expects Montalbano to arrive imminently at a rendezvous with some friends. But before he can reply the caller announces himself as someone called Riccardino and hangs up.

Later that day news comes in of a brutal slaying in broad daylight by an unknown assassin who makes his getaway on a motorbike. And when the Inspector learns of the victim's identity - a man called Riccardino - his troubles are only just beginning. For soon he must contend with the involvement of a local bishop and a fortune teller who reports some strange goings-on in her neighbourhood.

All roads soon lead to a local salt mine but the case proves stubbornly intractable until Montalbano receives another unexpected call . . .

'Camilleri has contrived a fitting goodbye to a dear old friend who operates, to the very last, on his own terms' - Guardian