The Scent of the Night is the sixth comic detective novel in the Inspector Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri. 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. The Scent of the Night is followed by the seventh book in the series, Rounding the Mark.
