The Shape of Water

Andrea Camilleri's novel is set in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigàta. Two young land surveyors employed as temporary garbage collectors, Pino Catalano and Saro Montaperto, are assigned to clean "the Pasture," a tract of Mediterranean brush near an abandoned chemical factory on the outskirts of town. The area serves as an open-air market for prostitution and drugs, run by a local figure named Gegè Gullotta with tacit permission from authorities.

While working, Saro discovers a heart-shaped diamond pendant on a gold chain and pockets it. Pino spots a green BMW hidden in bushes, and inside they find the body of Silvio Luparello, a powerful political figure who recently became provincial party secretary. Before calling the police, they phone Counselor Pietro Rizzo, Luparello's right-hand man, hoping he will ask them to move the body somewhere less compromising. Rizzo's response is bizarrely calm: He asks no questions, tells them to do their duty, and hangs up. They report the discovery to Inspector Salvo Montalbano of the Vigàta police.

Montalbano, who lives alone in a beach house far from his girlfriend Livia in Genoa, examines the scene. Luparello's trousers are pulled down, his underwear exposed, his tie missing. Dr. Pasquano, the coroner, confirms death by natural causes: Luparello's heart, weakened by a prior bypass surgery, gave out during sexual activity. Local news programs praise the deceased but omit the circumstances of his death. The commissioner, the prefect, and the bishop's secretary all pressure Montalbano to close the case immediately. He negotiates 48 additional hours from Judge Lo Bianco, though something about the case feels wrong.

He begins an unofficial investigation. Posing as a couple with Corporal Anna Ferrara, a young colleague who has feelings for him, Montalbano surveys the Pasture and determines that the BMW entered from the beach rather than the provincial road. Sergeant Fazio traces the route and confirms the car traveled through the dry bed of the Canneto River, an extremely rough passage. At a midnight meeting, Gegè provides testimony from his workers. A prostitute called Milly saw the car arrive driven by a woman. Another prostitute, Carmen, saw the woman have sex with the man in the passenger seat. After the man died, the woman calmly exited and was picked up by a waiting car. Milly noticed something dark around the man's neck when the car arrived; Carmen saw nothing there later. No tie was found. Gegè voices deep skepticism that Luparello would ever have risked being seen at the Pasture.

Montalbano learns that someone has been searching jewelers across the province for the necklace. He visits Pino's apartment while Pino is out and finds a written transcript of the phone call to Rizzo. At Saro's apartment, he recovers the necklace and writes a backdated receipt to protect Saro. Pino later comes to headquarters and confirms he wrote the transcript, explaining that Rizzo's total lack of surprise makes sense only if Rizzo already knew how and where Luparello had died.

Montalbano sets a trap by giving the necklace to Jacomuzzi, the crime lab chief, with instructions for total secrecy, knowing Jacomuzzi cannot keep a secret. Rizzo soon phones to reclaim the necklace, arriving with a letter of attorney signed by Giacomo Cardamone, the son of Dr. Angelo Cardamone, the newly elected party secretary and Luparello's former political rival. Rizzo claims Giacomo's Swedish wife, Ingrid Sjostrom, lost the necklace during a visit to the Pasture. Montalbano returns it but demands a 10-million-lire check as the finder's percentage, payable to Saro, whose infant son needs specialist treatment abroad.

Inside the abandoned factory, Montalbano discovers a leather handbag weighted with stones. The initials torn from its surface, still impressed in the leather, read I.S.: Ingrid Sjostrom. Someone is planting evidence to frame her.

Montalbano visits the Luparello villa, where Stefano Luparello, the dead man's son, warns him that his mother already knows how her husband died. The widow reveals that Luparello maintained a secret house at Capo Massaria and gives Montalbano the keys. Using crime-lab photographs, she points out that Luparello's underwear is on backwards, concluding he was surprised naked and dressed in haste. She believes the death resulted from a political operation against his image, not murder. She intimates that her husband was bisexual and introduces Giorgio Zicari, Luparello's nephew, a young man devastated by grief who has an epileptic seizure upon seeing the photographs. Montalbano notices a band of untanned skin on Giorgio's neck from a recently removed neck brace.

At the Capo Massaria house, Montalbano finds women's clothing carrying Ingrid's scent, three wigs, and a loaded 7.65-caliber pistol in a bedside drawer. Under the bed lies the missing tie. He meets Ingrid, who confirms the purse and clothes are hers but reveals she was not Luparello's lover. They slept together only once and became friends. Luparello let her use the house to meet a man who forced himself into her life: her father-in-law, Dr. Cardamone, who first assaulted her during a trip to Rome. Her husband Giacomo cooperated with Rizzo's cover story to protect his father from scandal. Montalbano has Ingrid drive down the Canneto riverbed, and she navigates it expertly, consistent with her skills as a rally-racing champion. At Montalbano's house, where he tends to Ingrid's twisted ankle, Anna arrives, sees Ingrid half-undressed on the bed, and rushes out in humiliation.

Wrapping gauze around his own sore neck one night, Montalbano catches his reflection and has a flash of insight: The white band recalls the untanned skin on Giorgio's neck. What Milly, the prostitute, saw around the dead man's neck was not a tie but Giorgio's neck brace, placed on the corpse. Montalbano returns to Capo Massaria with Ingrid, removes her belongings, and destroys the framing evidence. The next morning, he finds the discarded brace near the factory. Then Rizzo is found murdered, shot execution-style at the base of the skull. Racing to Capo Massaria, Montalbano discovers the pistol is gone.

Over dinner with Commissioner Burlando, Montalbano presents a partial theory: Rizzo found the corpse at Capo Massaria, dressed the body hastily, and had his men transport it to the Pasture. One operative posed as the woman, performed a pantomime of sex with the corpse, and planted the necklace and purse to implicate Ingrid, giving Rizzo leverage over the Cardamone family and a path to political power. The commissioner finds the theory plausible but notes there is no proof. Montalbano agrees to close the case.

He flies to Genoa and tells Livia the full truth he withheld from the commissioner. The person with Luparello when he died was not a woman but Giorgio, whose devotion to his uncle had become passionate love. Giorgio dressed the corpse, placed his own neck brace on the dead man to prop up his head, and covered it with dark cloth. Terrified, he called Rizzo, who exploited the situation. Montalbano also reveals that Giacomo cooperated with Rizzo specifically to shield his father from the scandal of his relationship with Ingrid. When Giorgio saw the photographs and understood the degrading spectacle Rizzo had staged, he took the pistol and executed Rizzo. Livia accuses Montalbano of promoting himself "from inspector to god, a fourth-rate god, but still a god" (215) for withholding the truth.

Returning to Sicily, Montalbano encounters Stefano at the airport, who tells him Giorgio is dead: His car crashed through a guardrail near Capo Massaria, plunging onto the rocks below. On the drive home, Montalbano throws the neck brace into an artificial lake, disposing of the last piece of evidence. At police headquarters, Anna spots him and says bitterly that he is supposed to be an honest man. Montalbano replies that he is not, but not for the reasons she thinks.