The Safety Net (An Inspector Montalbano Mystery)

The Safety Net (An Inspector Montalbano Mystery)

The new novel in the transporting New York Times bestselling Inspector Montalbano mystery series Vigàta is bustling as the new filming location for a Swedish television series set in 1950. In the production frenzy, the director asks the locals to track down movies and vintage photos to faithfully recreate the air of Vigata in that time. Engineer Ernesto Sabatello, while rummaging in the attic of his house, finds some films shot by his father from 1958 to 1963, always on the same day, March 27 and always the same shot; the outside wall of a country house. Montalbano hears the story, and intrigued by the mystery of it, begins to investigate its meaning. Meanwhile, a middle school is threatened by a group of armed men, and a closer look at the situation finds Montalbano looking into the students themselves and finally delving into the world of social media. Andrea Camilleri , a mega-bestseller in Italy and Germany, is the author of the New York Times bestselling Inspector Montalbano mystery series as well as historical novels that take place in nineteenth-century Sicily. His books have been made into Italian TV shows and translated into thirty-two languages. His thirteenth Montalbano novel, The Potter's Field, won the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger Award and was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry. 1 The alarm clock started ringing wildly. Eyes still closed, Montalbano reached out towards the nightstand with one hand and, feeling around, tried to turn it off, worried that the noise would wake up Livia, who was sleeping beside him.   But his fingers knocked into a glass that first tipped over and then fell to the floor. He cursed the saints. Then he immediately heard Livia giggle. He turned towards her. "Did the alarm-?" "No, I'd been awake for a while." "Really? What were you doing?" "What do you mean what was I doing? I was waiting for daybreak and watching you."   Montalbano thought that the back of his head must constitute a rather boring landscape.   "Did you know that lately you sometimes whistle in your sleep?" asked Livia.   Upon hearing this revelation, Montalbano, for whatever reason, got irritated.   "How could I know that if I'm asleep? Anyway, be more specific. What do I whistle, pop songs, opera, or what?"   "Calm down! Are you offended or something? All right, to be more precise, you sometimes emit a kind of whistling sound."   "Through my nose?"   "I don't know."   "Next time, pay attention to whether I whistle through my nose or my mouth, and let me know."   "Why, does it make a difference?"   "Yes, it makes a huge difference. I remember reading something once about a guy whose nose made a whistling sound and it later turned out to be a symptom of a deadly disease."   "Oh, come on! And, by the way, I had a bad dream."   "Want to tell me about it?"   "I'm sitting and reading on a veranda exactly like ours, except that it gives onto the docks at the port. At some point I hear this big commotion of voices, and I see a man crying for help and being chased by another man ordering him to stop. The guy running away has a scarf around his head, a bandanna, something tied under his chin. The man giving chase is wearing a large belt with a lot of sharp knives tucked into it. At a certain point the man being chased finds himself up against the broadside of a barge. He has a moment of hesitation, and the pursuer takes advantage of this to throw one of his knives, which strikes the man in the nape of the neck, plunges all the way through, and comes out the front of his throat, nailing him to the wood of the barge. Just horrible. So the pursuer stops and starts throwing more knives at the victim, tracing the outline of his body against the boat. Then he suddenly turns and takes a step towards me. But luckily at that point I woke up."   "We sort of overdid it last night with the baby octopus!" was Montalbano's comment.   "And did you dream anything?" Livia asked.   At that moment the alarm went off. But how was that possible? It had rung just five minutes earlier!   Head still numb with sleep, the inspector opened his eyes and immediately realized he was in bed. There was no Livia. She was at home, in Boccadasse. He'd dreamt the whole thing, including Livia's dream.   He got up, went into the kitchen, prepared his customary mug of coffee, then got into the shower. Moments later, he was sitting on the veranda, smoking a cigarette while drinking his coffee. The day promised to be a fine one. Everything looked freshly painted, so bright were the colors.   He had no desire whatsoever to go into Vigˆta, or into what at least had been Vigˆta up until a few days earlier. Because in fact the town had put on a completely different face. It had been, well, thrown back in time, turned into the Vigˆta of the 1950s.   This irked Montalbano no end, because it all seemed so fake, as