The Terra-Cotta Dog

The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri is second in the Inspector Montalbano mystery series. I'm enjoying them so far. I read the first one a couple of years ago and read the 5th one back during the summer.

from the back of the book:

A mysterious tete-a-tete with a Mafioso, an inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words lead Inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountain cave where two young lovers dead fifty years and still embracing are watched over by a life-size terracotta dog. What the Inspector discovers is a fifty-year-old crime that takes him, heedless of personal danger, on a journey through Sicily's past and into a family's dark heart amid the horrors of World War II.

The Guardian has an article on Camilleri's books. The New York Times has an article about him. The TimesOnline site has named him as one of the 50 greatest crime writers and specifically recommends this book.

I'll keep looking for these and will pick them up as I see them.