"The mud pyramid" . I liked this, although I'm not really into complicated political-financial plots; I liked it anyway, though.
As always I really much like when there are side characters like this lady who tells him the name of the dead man or the victim's father, because to portray these old 'country characters' there are often really good actors, you know the kind that never really became a huge name but that can really do their job well, and I liked these two actors too.
This episode starts with a man in his underwear, barefoot, running away at night under the rain, and it looks like he's already been shot in the back. He rides a bike to a construction site or something, hides inside a huge pipe and there he dies. Fazio is already there when Montalbano arrives. The pipe is 18 meters long and the body is at the end, so Montalbano barely looks at him before going back out because he's claustrophobic.
The two of them go looking at the village where the man probably came from; they meet an old woman who sells eggs and stuff but doesn't have a license to do that, actually she never even asked for it nor she intends to, and from Fazio's questions about it she gets that they are cops so she calls her big son to send them off but Montalbano offers her a deal: no more talk about that if she answers a few questions. She's reluctant to spy on anyone, but he only needs innocent answers so she can tell him who the man was: Nicotra, who lives alone with his German wife.
Gambardella is a journalist that called at the station to talk to Montalbano who wasn't in. Mimì didn't talk to her because there's a history between them, although this time it's the other way around, she left him :-p
Mimì is all cocky, saying they need to compliment him because he caught a drug dealer after receiving an anonymous phone call.
The journalist calls again later and meets Montalbano at his house to talk. She says she's being investigating on a construction company, but someone didn't like her snooping around and sent her a picture of her own son, a clear threat. She says she talked to three workers, one of them is the man Mimì arrested for drug dealing, so Montalbano asks the chief of narcotics to free him with an excuse, but the guy tells him to stop lying to his brothers before assuring him that the guy will be released (no minchiate ai fratuzzi :lol:) . Montalbano tells Mimì that someone used him to frame the guy Piscopo and tells him to think twice before believing anonymous phone calls.
Nicotra-father comes asking about his son, very much worried, and they have to tell him the truth; the poor man needs support in exiting the station. Fazio will drive him to identify the body and then home. He said that he used to visit his son every Sunday, but these last six months he stopped because his son asked him to.
They thought they'd find the wife's body at home but instead it's empty. There are though many indications that a third person lived there.
A lawyer, Barbera, informs Montalbano that his Beretta-gun has been stolen, probably by Nicotra to kill his cheating wife.
Another anonymous phone call leads them to a car set on fire... apparently a message to someone... but here I'm not sure who is that someone and what the message is about. I mean, it was Nicotra's car, but he's already dead so... boh I don't know.
(At the police station there's a group of prostitutes, maybe trying to recreate US movie scenes, because, really??)
As expected, shortly after poor Piscopo has been released, he gets shot. He’s not yet dead, but he’s not granted protection, not enough elements or stuff like that, so Montalbano and Mimì do it personally, as volunteers.
As always in these movies, the hospital is so empty and clean, nothing like any hospitals I’ve ever seen...
When it’s Montalbano’s turn to watch over Piscopo, a man tries to sneak in, they try shooting at each other until a second man knocks him out with a blow to the head. Of course, NOW Piscopo is granted protection...
By chance Fazio discovers a secret basement in the dead guy’s garage (before going out Fazio rang the bell at the wall, just because, and the floor opened up). There’s a big safe down there, empty.
Montalbano has Galluzzo make a phone call to Germany asking for Inge, but they only reach a bar - they mock his poor German skills, but for someone who left Germany when he was only five, he does well enough...
Montalbano smokes a sigarette with the big son of that old woman selling eggs, and they talk. The guy is in love with Inge, and he saw the third man living there, he saw the tattoo of a red sun on his left arm.
A young man confesses to killing Nicotra, and Montalbano listens to his story of how the lover killed the jealous husband, but he didn’t write anything down; the lawyer with the guy gets angry and Montalbano yells that ‘in this office nobody deduces anything ever’ before sending him to pm Iacono. He knows it’s a fake story to stop his investigation.
Iacono isn’t convinced by the story himself, but has no choice but to arrest him, and the guy Pennisi gets himself killed in prison.
When Mimì remembers the red-sun-tattoo, they know that the third man was Rosales, a ‘businessman’ who had connections and was never caught before, and in order to work here he went into business with both mafia-families, Cuffaro and Sinagra. Montalbano goes to see him with Fazio and Mimì who refused to let him go alone. Montalbano can only bluff, but gets what he wanted. Actually Rosales was sure that there were no proof, but he went along with him because, he says, he’s too tired and wants this chance to take his revenge on the Cuffaro, by ‘accepting’ to fall into the trap, and he reveals everything he knows.
This is basically the end of the case. I got a bit lost at some point, I admit. Who killed Nicotra then, the Cuffaro? Why, they wanted all the money not trusting to work with the Sinagra? I got it right?
Anyway, what about Inge, is she even alive?
Nobody knows.
The last scene shows Montalbano with Livia and her cute dog, swimming in front of his house.
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