The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri**

Reading dates: 16 April – 05 May 2018

Before picking up this book, I begun ‘Macbeth’ by Jo Nosbø, one of the most ill-conceived projects I have ever encountered. All you need to know about my relation to the book is that I abandoned it half way through, it was so pointless. I picked up Camilleri as the crime fiction antidote to that nonsense: it is generally light (as in sunny), focused on the senses, very Southern European. As the opposite of Nesbø, it worked, but I think this book is not finished. It just stops. Now, there is guts in a writer doing that, of course, and it shows Montalbano’s character and time of life: his relationship with Livia is about to break, he is in conflict between love and work, thinking about the direction of his life, at 56. We are left in a crossroads and although that, per se, is not bad, it leaves a real taste of dissatisfaction in the reader. I will go for the next one, for sure, just for the description of Italian dishes. This one even has a recipe which, for me, was the best bit.