Tell me everything. But most of all, tell me about the snack thief.'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 whose young son steals other schoolchildren'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.'A magnificent series of novels' Sunday Times'The best company in crime fiction today' Guardian'One of fiction's greatest detectives . . . utterly gripping' Daily Mirror