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{{infoboxsortinfobox1
|title=The Shape of Water
|sort=Shape of Water
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=256
|publisher=Picador
|date=February 6, 2004
|isbn=0330492861
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0330492861</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0330492861|aznus=<amazonus>0330492861</amazonus>
}}
I have a penchant for Italian detectives. My favourite (when Michael Dibdin is on his best form) is Aurelio Zen, closely followed by Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti. Leon's not quite up to the standard of Dibdin at his best, but she's more consistent. Recently I've taken to reading crime novels in translation and my latest discovery is Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Salvo Montalbano. "The Shape of Water" is the first book in the series.
The book is a translation from the original Italian by Stephen Sartarelli and he produces a good text although I occasionally found his sentence construction hard to follow. Having said that, he's particularly good with the dialogue, which can be coarse at times, but gives a real feeling of authenticity. The humour in the book is subtle and Sartarelli excels here, which is commendable, particularly where word-play is concerned as this is always difficult to translate well.
There was one point when I felt very cross with Mr Sartarelli. In the course of reading the book I Googled various words and phrases which I didn't understand, with variable results. "''Sicilchim" '' didn't get a result at all. Then I found, right at the end of the book, with no prior refernece reference which I could find, several pages of notes. Sicilchim is apparently shorthand for Sicilia Chemica, or Sicilian Chemicals. I'd have liked to have these notes as footnotes on the individual pages.
If you like police-procedural novels I think you'll like this book. There are some short-comings but I'll certainly be looking out for the later novels in the series, [[''The Terracotta Dog]] '' and [[''The Snack Thief]]''. If you are looking for other similar novels set in Sicily then you might like to read Michael Dibdin's [[Blood Rain]], although this is not one of the best in the Zen series. A better Aurelio Zen novel would be [[Dead Lagoon]], which is set in Venice. You might also like Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti novels. I particularly enjoyed [[Fatal Remedies]].
{{amazontext|amazon=0330492861}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=38957550330492861}} [[Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano Books in Chronological Order]]
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