ESSAY: ANDREA CAMILLERI: A CRIME READER’S GUIDE TO THE CLASSICS: A tour through Inspector Salvo Montalbano's Sicily and the life and works of an Italian mystery icon. READING GROUP GUIDE: The Shape of Water (Penguin) Andrea Camilleri (Bastulli Mystery Library) Andrea Camilleri Author Page (Italian Mysteries) The particular strengths of the book are the setting that Camilleri brings to life - not least by taunting us with the vittles Montalbano enjoys - and the witty character of the Inspector, as well as his becoming determination to see justice done, even if he has to bend the rules himself on occasion. The first in Andrea Camilleris savagely funny, brilliantly compelling Sicilian crime series featuring Inspector Montalbano. The goats of Vigata once grazed on the trash. The opportunity to let it slide by is ample, as it's not even apparent at first that a crime was committed, but the fact that the body was found in a trash yard that's a notorious pick-up spot for whores is sufficiently out of the victim's public character that the Inspector starts digging. The Shape of Water is the first book in a sly, witty, engaging series, with a sardonic take on Sicilian life. Camilleri's Sicily is just as thoroughly corrupt as you'd expect it to be and no one much seems to mind, other than Montalbano, who isn't about to let everyone else's eagerness to look away stop him from solving the murder of a respected local politician.

This first mystery in the Inspector Salvo Montalbano series introduces us to the sardonic but determined policeman, the imaginary Sicilian seacoast town of Vigáta, and a cast of colorful characters.

''Water doesn't have any shape!' I said laughing. And he answered me with a question in turn. One day I saw that my friend had put a bowl, a cup, a teapot, and a square milk carton on the edge of a well, had filled them all with water, and was looking at them attentively. 'I had a little friend, a peasant boy, who was younger than me.

The shape of water book camilleri