I see a Mexican wave coming up for the pick from Matt Rees, author of the engrossing The Bethlehem Murders as I know some of you have a fondness for this author:
"The Patience of the Spider: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery By Andrea Camilleri
The maestro of the Italian detective novel is Andrea Camilleri. This eighth in his series about Sicilian sleuth Salvo Montalbano is without a doubt the best to have been translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli so far. It's by far the most compelling, intelligent mystery I've read this year. Montalbano's a fabulous creation and a true cult hero to Italians. When he isn't obsessing about the crime at hand, he's nearing tears at the quality of the delicious food in his favourite trattoria and enjoying a tempestuous romance with his long-distance girlfriend. Camilleri is, however, not the cheery tour guide type (which proliferates even in murder mysteries set in Europe's most beautiful country). The Patience of the Spider is the darkest in a series which is becoming increasingly bitter about law, order and politics in Italy. The nicely constructed plot revolves around the kidnapping of a girl from a family which used to be rich. But the heart of the book is the struggle by the aging Montalbano--after a lifetime waging war against the lawlessness and neglect of Sicily--to reassert his own faith in the goodness of other human beings. A beautiful novel, full of humour and cultural insight."
--Matt Rees is the author of the Omar Yussef Mysteries, a series about a Palestinian detective. The first book The Bethlehem Murders was published in May by Atlantic Books, which also will publish The Saladin Murders in February. Born in Newport, Wales, he worked as a journalist in the Middle East for more than a decade and now lives in Jerusalem. The French magazine L'Express dubbed him "the Dashiell Hammett of Palestine" and Colin Dexter called Omar Yussef "a splendid creation".
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