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The crime is
interesting, by no means unusual in these times of free market largesse. A
financial shark by the name of Emanuele Gargano arrives in Vigàta
driving a fancy Alfa Romero 166 limo promising big returns to any investor
interested... and after the first quarter, he doesn't disappoint: 20%. Other
citizens pile in with their money, failing to realize that it's a pyramid scam,
that they're being paid out of their own principal, and that sooner or later
Garganzo will disappear with the rest of their money. When he does, he leaves
behind heartbreak and tragedy, as the investors deal with the shock of being
swindled. Outrage, anger and heart attacks follow... and Montalbano, who is
only a witness to the carnage (the case is one for the fraud squad), decides to
seek revenge of behalf of his fellow citizens.
'A bitch, yes, but
a beautiful bitch, even more beautiful than the time before, perhaps because
she was over her flu. She climbed into the car, thighs flashing festively on
the wind. Montalbano turned....'
Perhaps the most
interesting aspect of this story is in the Faulknerian psychology of Gargano's
employee, Mariastella Consentino, a fifty year old woman who loves her boss
like a favorite slave. Of course we're distracted by another of his employees,
the familiar Camilleri femme fatale, the aggressively beautiful Michela
Manganaro ('the bitch with the Marlene Dietrich voice') who seduces Montalbano
as easily as dialling up a cup of coffee from a vending machine. And as usual
with these Camilleri women, she's a bit unbelievable, and as usual, we don't
care, as a Montalbano drama has to have a sexy woman to break all the codes and
punish the inspector while rewarding the reader as per the cop genre. Yes, he
guilt eats lots too, and if we thought about it rationally, we would realize
Montalbano would have to be a 100 pounds overweight despite all his smoking and
swimming and walks along the beach or the jetty to the lighthouse.
It's all very funny,
of course, and the tragedy is always leitmotif. Even when he finds his
inspirational Saracen tree has been cut down by a careless builder working for
one of Gargano's employees at 'King Midas', a young homosexual called Giacomo
Pelligrino, there is justice... although can there ever be justice for a
thousand year old olive tree with still lots to give? Maybe a bullet to the
face or a voyage to the bottom of the sea might suffice. A drunken Montalbano
vandalizes the property and then has to deal with the crime when it's reported
first thing the next morning. Funny? That's only the beginning.
The key to the story?
A retired school teacher who's considered a crank by all and sundry because he
once reported seeing a UFO on one of his walks near Punta Pizzillo. Some of the
best imagery happens when he accompanies Montalbano to the cliff and a shaft of
light ('like a votive painting') provides the relentless inspector with the
clue he needs to crack it all open... although a little bit of James Bond
action is required before he can bring his ad hoc investigation to a
close.
Uneven, stretched out
with speculative exposition typical of a production team trying to storyboard a
script, The Scent of Night nevertheless has enough character and imagery to
satisfy anyone who has read a few of the Montalbano novels, although maybe
fatal for a jaded neophyte looking for action and easy murder. Montalbano's
outlaw behaviour keeps us going, and we might even consider taking up smoking
in sympathy for his sense of persecution.
© LR April
2017
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