by Andrea Camilleri

Born in 1925 in Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Andrea Camilleri held a string of jobs in television (mostly with the Italian public network RAI), film, and theater before retiring to become a full-time writer. Married with three children and four grandchildren, he currently lives in Rome. His first novel, Il corso delle cose (The Order of Things), was not published until 1978, and he wrote for another 15 years or so before achieving his current enormous fame. It derives almost entirely from the popularity of his crack detective Salvo Montalbano, whom Camilleri first introduced in La forma dell’acqua (1994; The Shape of Water). Camilleri was 69 at the time. Thereafter, he placed Montalbano at the center of several more novels, including Il cane di terracotta (1996; The Terra-Cotta Dog), Il ladro di merendine (1996; The Snack Thief), La voce del violino (1997; The Voice of the Violin), La gita...