[5] An immensely popular Italian weekly periodical of puzzles, such as rebuses, acrostics, crossword puzzles, riddles, etc. Created in 1932, it is also published in a number of other European countries.
[6] As part of George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, launched in March 2003, Italy, under right-wing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, committed three thousand soldiers to the effort, helping to form part of what was called the “Coalition of the Willing.” The modern town of Nasiriyah, an important petroleum center with a population of over 250,000, was severely damaged by American bombs and fighting during the war and became a center for the small Italian contingent, who built a hospital there, among other things. On November 12, 2003, a suicide bombing by the Iraqi resistance killed twenty-three, including nineteen Italians, resulting in a fierce outcry among Italians at home, who had been overwhelmingly against the American declaration of war and Berlusconi’s agreement to participate in an effort they believed unjust. By having the character of Vanna Digiulio be killed in a secret operation before the Nasiriyah bombing, Camilleri appears to be highlighting what he views as the murky nature of the Italian participation in an unjustifiable war.
[7] in Italian, bella donna means “beautiful woman.”
[8] Marinated veal shanks, often served as antipasto.
[9] From the poem “Favoletta” in Cuor Morituro (1925-1930), translation from Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba, translated by Stephen Sartarelli (Riverdale-on-Hudson: Sheep Meadow Press, 1998), p. 131.
[10] Agramante is one of the leaders of the Saracen knights in Orlando Furioso, the fanciful verse romance by Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) loosely based on the Carolingian cycle of medieval chansons de geste. Episodes from Orlando Furioso provide much of the material used in the teatro dei pupi, the traditional Sicilian puppet theater one can still see in the streets of Sicily today.
[11] See Andrea Camilleri, The Track of Sand (Penguin, 2010).
[12] The Italian language contains neither the letter K nor the letter Y.
