Rounding the Mark: Amazon.ca: Andrea Camilleri, Stephen Sartarelli: Books

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Camilleri's gripping seventh Inspector Montalbano mystery (after 2005's The Smell of the Night) successfully integrates serious political themes with a hero reminiscent of Colin Dexter's beloved Inspector Morse. Frustrated by his department's repressive handling of security for the G8 summit in Genoa, Montalbano seriously considers resigning. His attempt to unwind with a casual swim along the Sicilian seashore fails when he discovers a corpse in the water. The inspector's pursuit of the cause of death intersects with another mystery—the inquiry into a hit-and-run that claimed the life of a young boy who may have been victimized by human traffickers. When Montalbano realizes that he may have inadvertently aided the boy's victimizers, his internal turmoil intensifies. Despite Camilleri's hard look at modern-day slavery and child abuse, he maintains Montalbano's gallows humor, making this far from a run-of-the-mill police procedural. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

We noted in our review of The Smell of the Night (2005) that Camilleri's Salvo Montalbano series was becoming considerably darker, with the Sicilian inspector fighting a losing battle against the melancholy that weighs down so many overburdened European cops, from Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander in Sweden to Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen in Italy. Pervasive corruption has much to do with Montalbano's growing sense of powerlessness, but, in his seventh adventure, the shenanigans of his superiors and the politicians behind them are coupled with the evil underside of the opening of Europe's borders: the buying and selling of immigrant children (to be used either as slave labor, toys for pedophiles, or the source of illegal organ transplants). Montalbano unwittingly abets one such trafficker in human flesh and spends the rest of the novel struggling to set matters right. But setting anything right in this absurdly wrong world is something of an exercise in futility, and Montalbano alternates between despair and steely resolve. Unlike other authors who dramatize both the ugly racism and unfathomable evil that too often accompany an immigrant's journey, Camilleri masterfully mixes tragedy and comedy by showing us Montalbano's laughably human foibles and excesses, from his continuing hunger for a good meal and his bumbling efforts to sustain a romantic relationship through his compassionate if often misguided attempts to deal with his subordinates. Ordinary life goes on, even in the face of extraordinary horror. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Stinking, treacherous night. Read the first page

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4.0 out of 5 stars Corruption, Tragedies, and Comedy, Aug 17 2007

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)

Ce commentaire est de: Rounding the Mark (Hardcover)

Rounding the Mark is a tragedy with lots of comedy to soften it. The darkness in this book comes from the pits of hell. Dante would have recognized the evil doers.

Ultimately, the lesson this story teaches is that we need to see ourselves more objectively and have a good laugh at what we see. That's a message that many won't be ready for as they consider the evil that men do to one another.

As the book opens, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is upset by instances of misbehavior by the police. The core of his self-worth is so affronted that he cannot bear to remain part of the police. Then, in a series of comedic turns, events conspire to delay his decision. This upset leads him to take a long swim . . . during which he has a most unusual surprise. That surprise immediately has burlesque consequences that will keep you laughing.

Next, a continuing gag line is established when Montalbano receives a call from Deputy Commissioner Riguccio who needs to borrow some glasses. While delivering the glasses, Montalbano unknowingly steps into moral quicksand . . . and lives to have nightmares about the consequences. From there, Montalbano finds that he can always count on his colleague, Torretta, to provide whatever is needed.

The affront to Montalbano's self-esteem is so severe that he pursues a one-man private investigation to right a wrong. In the course of that investigation, he learns a lot about his limits. Others, it turns out, are more aware and assist in unexpected ways.

In Rounding the Mark, Andrea Camilleri moves beyond the limits of the mystery and police procedural genres to movingly display the ambiguous position that the police play in serving the public while needing to address their own fears, prejudices, and feelings. For that purpose, the comedy in the book is too strong. Those interludes feel like clowns from the circus running across the stage in the middle of Macbeth.

But if you have enjoyed the earlier books in the series, you'll be moved by this one. It will strike you as a more serious and depressing book than most of the others. The contact with mortality is more visceral and personal here, and you'll feel it deeply.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Corruption, Tragedies, and Comedy, Aug 17 2007

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)

Ce commentaire est de: Rounding The Mark (Paperback)

Rounding the Mark is a tragedy with lots of comedy to soften it. The darkness in this book comes from the pits of hell. Dante would have recognized the evil doers.

Ultimately, the lesson this story teaches is that we need to see ourselves more objectively and have a good laugh at what we see. That's a message that many won't be ready for as they consider the evil that men do to one another.

As the book opens, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is upset by instances of misbehavior by the police. The core of his self-worth is so affronted that he cannot bear to remain part of the police. Then, in a series of comedic turns, events conspire to delay his decision. This upset leads him to take a long swim . . . during which he has a most unusual surprise. That surprise immediately has burlesque consequences that will keep you laughing.

Next, a continuing gag line is established when Montalbano receives a call from Deputy Commissioner Riguccio who needs to borrow some glasses. While delivering the glasses, Montalbano unknowingly steps into moral quicksand . . . and lives to have nightmares about the consequences. From there, Montalbano finds that he can always count on his colleague, Torretta, to provide whatever is needed.

The affront to Montalbano's self-esteem is so severe that he pursues a one-man private investigation to right a wrong. In the course of that investigation, he learns a lot about his limits. Others, it turns out, are more aware and assist in unexpected ways.

In Rounding the Mark, Andrea Camilleri moves beyond the limits of the mystery and police procedural genres to movingly display the ambiguous position that the police play in serving the public while needing to address their own fears, prejudices, and feelings. For that purpose, the comedy in the book is too strong. Those interludes feel like clowns from the circus running across the stage in the middle of Macbeth.

But if you have enjoyed the earlier books in the series, you'll be moved by this one. It will strike you as a more serious and depressing book than most of the others. The contact with mortality is more visceral and personal here, and you'll feel it deeply.

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Rounding the Mark [Large Print] (Paperback)

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