Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano books in order

When two employees of the Splendour Refuse Collection Company discover the body of engineer Silvio Luparello, one of the local movers and shakers, apparently deceased in flagrante at the Pasture, the coroner's verdict is death from natural causes. But Inspector Salvo Montalbano, as honest as he is streetwise and as scathing to fools and villains as he is compassionate to their victims, is not ready to close the case – even though he's being pressured by Vigàta's police chief, judge, and bishop.

The Terracotta Dog opens with a mysterious tête-à-tête with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that 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. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him, heedless of personal danger, on a journey through the island's past and into a family's dark heart amid the horrors of World War II.

When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Inspector Montalbano suspects a link between the two incidents.

His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished house cleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other school children's mid-morning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life – as well as Montalbano's – is endangered when the inspector exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue.

Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder . . . 

A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari – two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigàta police headquarters.
But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, he's led down a path more evil and more far-reaching than any he has been down before.

When an angry octogenarian holds a terrified and lovelorn secretary at gunpoint, Inspector Montalbano is reluctantly drawn into the case. The secretary's boss, a financial advisor, has vanished along with several billion lire entrusted to him by the good citizens of Vigàta. Also missing is the advisor's young colleague, whose uncle just happens to be building a house on the site of Inspector Montalbano's very favourite olive tree . . . 

Increasingly disillusioned with his government and the world in general, Inspector Montalbano is considering retirement. He is starting to feel his age, and even his favourite restaurant has closed. But when he bumps into a dead body during a bracing swim, his detective instincts are aroused once more. Particularly when the most likely identity of the victim is a man already long buried . . . 

Chief Inspector Montalbano is on enforced sick leave. But when a local girl goes mysteriously missing, the whole community takes an interest in the case. Why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl's impoverished father and dying mother will be able to find a fortune? The ever-inquisitive Montalbano steps in, to get to the heart of the matter in his own inimitable style.

As he gets older, Inspector Montalbano is plagued by existential questions. But he doesn't have much time to wax philosophical before the gruesome murder of a man – shot in the face at point-blank range with his pants down – commands his attention. Add two evasive, beautiful women as prime suspects, dirty cocaine, dead politicians, mysterious computer codes, and a series of threatening letters, and things soon get very complicated at the police headquarters in Vigàta.

The lazy, slow month of August at the height of the Sicilian summer is, Inspector Montalbano assures his girlfriend Livia as they prepare for a relaxing holiday in a villa he has found for them, far too hot for any murders to be committed. But when Livia's friends' young son goes missing, a chain of events is sparked which will certainly ruin the Chief Inspector's pleasant interlude.

Things are not going well for Inspector Montalbano. His long-distance relationship with Livia is on the rocks, he feels himself getting even older and he's growing tired of the violence in his job.
Then the dead body of a young woman is found in an illegal dump, with half her face missing. Her identity at first unknown; a tattoo of a sphinx moth on her left shoulder links her with three other girls bearing the same mark, all recent Russian immigrants to Italy. Victims of an underworld sex trade, these girls have been rescued from the Mafia night-club circuit by a Catholic charity organization. But what really lies behind the organization's charitable façade? 

Inspector Montalbano rises one morning to find the carcass of a horse on the beach in front of his seaside home. But no sooner do his men arrive, than the body has mysteriously vanished, leaving only a track in the sand. Before long Rachele, a beguiling equestrian champion, turns up at police headquarters to report her horse missing. The horse had been stabled at the grounds of a certain Saverio Lo Duca, one of the richest men in Sicily. Lo Duca has lost one of his own horses too. Montalbano, his curiosity piqued, investigates, but before long things take a more disturbing turn . . . 

While Vigàta is wracked by storms, Inspector Montalbano is called to attend the discovery of a dismembered body in a field of clay. Bearing all the marks of an execution style killing, it seems clear that this is, once again, the work of the notorious local mafia. But who is the victim? Why was the body divided into thirty pieces? And what is the significance of the Potter's Field?

A chance encounter with a strange young woman leads Inspector Montalbano to Vigàta harbour, and into a puzzling new mystery. The crew of a mysterious yacht, the Vanna, due to dock in the area have discovered a corpse floating in the water, the dead man's face badly disfigured. It isn't long before Montalbano begins to become suspicious of the Vanna's inhabitants. Who is the yacht's owner, the glamorous and short-tempered Livia Giovannini? How has she accrued her riches? And why does she spend so much time at sea?

About to depart for a holiday with his girlfriend Livia, Montalbano makes a quick trip to the police station to tie up loose ends. But when his dear colleague Fazio is discovered missing – and it transpires that the policeman has been involved in his own secret investigations – Montalbano instead launches a desperate search for his lost friend, as time begins to run out . . . 

When a crazed elderly man and his sister begin firing bullets from their balcony down onto the Vigàta street below, Inspector Montalbano finds himself a reluctant television hero.
A few days later, when a letter arrives containing a mysterious riddle, the Inspector becomes drawn into a perplexing treasure hunt set by an anonymous challenger. The inspector will follow the treasure hunt's clues and travel from Vigàta's teeming streets to its deserted outskirts: where an abandoned house overlooks a seemingly bottomless lake. But when a horrifying crime is committed, the game must surely be laid aside. And it isn't long before Montalbano himself will be in terrible danger . . . 

When members of Vigàta's elite are targeted in a series of perfectly executed burglaries, Inspector Montalbano reluctantly takes the case. It soon becomes clear however that more links these privileged few than simply their lost possessions . . . 

When Montalbano comes to the aid of his new neighbour, Liliana Lombardo, after the engine of her car is interfered with, the inspector can little imagine where this innocuous event will lead. It soon transpires that the young woman – beautiful, intelligent and rather vague about the whereabouts of her husband – is being targeted by someone with a grudge against her. But is Liliana's growing interest in Montalbano simply a product of the detective's innate charm? Or is she trying to lead him astray - and into trouble?

When a gentleman arrives at Montalbano's station to report an armed robbery on his wife that ended with a kiss, the inspector's suspicions are aroused.
As he delves deeper into the case, Montalbano finds that none of the witnesses' stories are adding up, and he can't help but feel that they're not meant to. When a body turns up showing all the signs of a mafia hit, the inspector knows he must excavate the truth from what he is being led to believe.

Inspector Montalbano receives an angry phone call from a supermarket boss; there's been a robbery at his store and Montalbano's colleague is treating him as a suspect. On arrival at the scene, Montalbano quickly agrees with Inspector Augello that this was no ordinary break-in, but with the supermarket's infamous links to the Mafia creating problems at every turn, this isn't going to be an easy case for the inspector to solve.

An elderly man is found dead in the dining room of his Vigàtan beach house; his coffee spilt across the table, a gunshot wound through the back of his head. The son who discovered the body has the most to gain from his father's untimely death, and his sister is quick to point out why. But as Inspector Montalbano learns more about the victim's dishonourable life, he soon finds half of Vigàta has a motive for the murder. The inspector truly has his work cut out for him this time.

As violent floods sweep through Inspector Montalbano's beloved hometown, a man is found dead, his body discovered in a sewage tunnel. As Montalbano investigates, he realises that every clue is pointing to the world of public spending, and with it, the Mafia. 

When two women are held up at gunpoint, chloroformed and kidnapped, but then released unharmed and with all their possessions just hours later, Inspector Montalbano must use all his logic and intuition to solve the crimes. What is the link between the kidnapper and the victims? And what is the mystery attacker gaining from his crimes? And can Montalbano solve the mystery before the kidnapper finds his next victim?    

A surge of migarants have been arriving in Inspector Montalbano’s coastal town of Vigàta, and everyone is on hand to help. The police are on the look out for the people smugglers responsible, and Inspector Montalbano and his ooicers are exhausted. Then, one night, the town's dressmaker is found dead. As the inspector investigates, what will he find if he keeps tugging on this thread? 

Vigàta is bustling in the twenty-fifth novel in the Inspector Montalbano series. A new Swedish television series set in the 1950s is being filmed in the town, and the director has asked the locals to find any photos and video taken in that decade. When Ernesto Sabatello finds film taken by his father, always the same shot of a country house on the same day between 1958 and 1963, Montalbano is intrigued and starts to investigate . . . The Inspector Montalbano novels are crime fiction at its most enthralling. 

When a body is found, it is discovered to be Carmelo Catalanotti, a theatre director with a formidable reputation. He is known for the acting method he developed for his actors: digging into their complexes to unleash their talent, a traumatic experience for all. Could this death be connected to another body which was recently discovered?  Inspector Montalbano thinks so, and he thinks the answer may lie in the theatre . . . 

In the twenty-seventh book in Andrea Camilleri’s crime fiction series, Inspector Montalbano is called on to investigate a murder and a suicide which leads him to the Halcyon, a mysterious ship that visits Vigàta’s port each day. On board, he finds very few crewmen, no passengers and a stern large enough to land a helicopter . . . 

Meanwhile, a rare trip to visit Livia may put the inspector’s position as the head of the commissariat in jeopardy.

In the highly anticipated final instalment of Camilleri's bestselling series, Inspector Montalbano receives a strange phone call early in the morning, from a caller by the name of Riccardino who claims to be expecting Montalbano's imminent arrival. But later that day, Montalbano learns of a brutal slaying in broad daylight, and while the assassin is unknown the victim's name is Riccardino – and the Inspector's troubles are only just beginning . . . Exquisitely crafted by one of Europe's greatest crime fiction writers, Riccardino is a series finale that is not to be missed.