Il giudice Surra / THE JUDGE SURRA AND OTHER INVESTIGATIONS IN SICILY

A collection of three short stories for the first time together in a very enjoyable reading.

Camilleri’s stories are always seductive, even when they leave out the sonorous fascination of vigatese and elusive scrambling of a spoken Italian between twists and dialectal touches. Counting, in one case and in the other, is the extraordinary exactitude of the author’s writing. In the trio, which here makes the book, find trim compositions of different narrative configuration, of equal inventive quality, and very enjoyable reading. Two of the short stories are dated 2005. The other is from 2011. Symptomatic is the short story Troppi equivoci with its severely cinematic construction. Captions scroll across the page screen as in an old-fashioned film. A necklace of onerous memories gives the title to Il medaglione. Marshal Antonio Brancato commands the Carabinieri Station of a mountain village in Sicily. More than anything, he is a family counselor, a peacemaker. He solves everything with theatrical cunning (Montalbano-style). Set in Montelusa, in the year 1862, with offshoots in the following two years, is Il giudice Surra. The protagonist of the historical tale (a Piemontese who descended to the land of Sicily) is armed with a candor that disorients the brotherhood, or mob, and makes him enigmatic, alien to the entire country; it makes him ignore threats, intimidation, and even an assassination attempt.