Rounding the Mark

“The idiosyncratic Montalbano is totally endearing.”

—The New York Times

“Like Mike Hammer or Sam Spade, Montalbano is the kind of guy who can’t stay out of trouble.... Still, deftly and lovingly translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Camilleri makes it abundantly clear that under the gruff, sardonic exterior our inspector has a heart of gold, and that any outbursts, fumbles, or threats are made only in the name of pursuing truth.” —The Nation

“Once again, violence is muted, complications rule, politics roil, but humor ... prevail[s] in the end. Italy is good to visit, even if only in print. And what better way to shorten a flight to Palermo than by gobbling this tasty snack along the way?”

—Los Angeles Times

“[Camilleri’s mysteries] offer quirky characters, crisp dialogue, bright storytelling—and Salvo Montalbano, one of the most engaging protagonists in detective fiction. . . . Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.”

—USA Today

“The Montalbano mysteries offer cose dolci to the world-lit lover hankering for a whodunit.” —The Village Voice

“The reading of these little gems is fast and fun every step of the way.” —The New York Sun

“Wittily translated from the savory Italian, Camilleri’s mysteries ... feature the sardonic Inspector Salvo Montalbano, whose gustatory adventures are at least as much fun as his crime solving.”

—Rocky Mountain News

“Camilleri once again thrills with his fluid storytelling and quirky characters.” —Publishers Weekly

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A PENGUIN MYSTERY

ROUNDING THE MARK

Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.

Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator. He is also the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Open Vault.

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First published in Penguin Books 2006

Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2006

All rights reserved

Originally published in Italian as Il giro di boa by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.

Copyright © 2003 Sellerio Editore.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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1

Stinking, treacherous night. Thrashing and turning, twisting and drifting off one minute, jolting awake and then lying back down—and it wasn’t from having scarfed down too much octopus a strascinasali or sardines a beccafico the evening before. No, he didn’t even have that satisfaction. The evening before, his stomach had twisted up so tight that not even a blade of grass could have slipped through. It had all started when dark thoughts assailed him after he’d seen a story on the national evening news. When it rains it pours—all’annigatu, petri di ’ncoddru—or, “rocks on a drowned man’s back,” as Sicilians call an unrelenting string of bad breaks that drag a poor stiff down. And since he’d been desperately flailing in storm-tossed seas for a few months now, feeling at times like he’d already drowned, that news had been like a big rock thrown right at him, at his head, in fact, knocking him out and finishing off what feeble strength he had left.

With an air of utter indifference, the anchorwoman had announced, in reference to the police raid of the Diaz School during the G8 meetings in Genoa, that the public prosecutor’s office of that city had concluded that the two Molotov cocktails found inside the school had been planted there by the policemen themselves, to justify the raid. This finding, continued the anchorwoman, came after the discovery that an officer who claimed to have been the