College-graduate Salvo Montalbano is a rising star in the Sicilian police, the youngest-ever appointed deputy commissioner. He's determined to solve his last case in his mountain town precinct, presumed gang murder where World War II-period mountaineering boots provide a crucial clue, while already promoted back to his native coastal village, to his fiancée's delight. Taking her there for a visit, he already walks into a web of dirty business involving the mob family's shamelessly 'mischievous' prince and a lawyer-fixer. Written by KGF Vissers

Salvo Montalbano declines any New Near('s Eve) invitation and distributes his father's gift, wine from the family vineyard, among his officers. In a room in the hotel where he sleeps, hotel manager Rosina Liotta Locastro's co-owning husband is found fatally shot. Neighbours are questioned in view of arrest for deadly carelessness at festive salvos, a national epidemic. Salvo however isn't convinced and digs in the Locastros business and romantic past. A priest also begs him to hear the deathbed confession of a woman who expires before she can elaborate on a story about poison not provided to a deceased husband's wife. Salvo's old schoolteacher's equally ancient buddy provides inspiration for the last case, but also convinces his fiancée that a cop's wife isn't for her. Written by KGF Vissers

Salvo doesn't see eye to eye with is very different new deputy commissioner Domenico 'Mimì' Augello, a slick, somewhat lazy womanizer, and keeps him cruelly short. Their first case is the kidnapping but quick unharmed return of a young girl during the local festival, so when the father denies filing a complaint, Salvo's focus is on the firm he runs with his brother, Mimi's on nurse Livia, but hers turns to Salvo. A crazy retired hoarder reports the theft of his years collection of beer bottle caps, which Salvo suspects to be about drugs. Finally there's a multiple twist in the local Mafia clan war. Written by KGF Vissers

A widower loan-shark was slaughtered, naked in is bed. His in-living niece Grazia shot the fleeing killer. One of Domenico's lovers, Elena Briguccio, is exposed as a slut by means of an illegally posted 'referendum', which mainly embarrassed her husband, a politician and the mayor's electoral challenger. Salvo's half-wit groceries delivery boy 'Dindo' is missing, but not long. Written by KGF Vissers

Marriage banns have been stolen from a local church - but by who and why? A letter of warning arrives too late and murder soon follows murder. As he tries to investigate, Montalbano comes up against the carabinieri, but a rift soon becomes a gateway to the truth in The Third Secret.

What is the message in the murder of a fish, a chicken, a dog, a goat, a man? The secret is buried among the Seven Mondays.