Montalbano learned how hard it was to put on a wetsuit while in a dinghy speeding over a sea that wasn't exactly calm. Mimi, at the helm, looked tense and worried.

"Getting seasick?" the inspector asked him at one point.

"No. Just sick of myself."

"Why?"

"Because every now and then I realize what a stupid shit I am to go along with some of your brilliant ideas."

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 Vigata. 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 . . .

Ably abetted by his loyal and eccentric team, Montalbano, the food-loving, commitment-phobic inspector, returns for another delicious investigation served up in vintage Camilleri style.