Downton, Merlin and many more to write about

Sunday late, I am finishing catch up on TV shows while I watch what became the penultimate episode of Winds of War by Herman Woulk

I have watched the first four episodes of Haunted on the BBC a series which has disappointed because it is created by the same team responsible for Spooks. I will write more when the series is completed.

I watched a little of Strictly Come Dancing results show after Surprise Surprise which was a sickly sweet and then the Antiques Roadshow followed by Downton Abbey where I missed part last weekend but have seen all the other episodes.

I was not impressed with the opening episodes of the new series but this changed with the third and subsequent episodes and has become essential Sunday evening viewing despite some well trodden story lines.

The key developments so far have been the death of one of the daughters when giving birth because of the blinkered view of the Consultant who ignored the advice of the family doctor. The father of the child who had to come to Downton for sanctuary from the Irish Independence cause and is former Chauffer to the household is determined to bring up his son as a catholic. Her ladyship appears to have forgiven her husband for his backing of the Consultant against the GP, letting him back into her bedroom.

Bates the former Valet to his Lordship, falsely imprisoned because of the machinations of his former wife who made her death appear murder instead of suicide has a hard time in jail because of the machinations of a prison warder and another prisoner. His wife becomes worried when she receives no letters for several months as does he but this is put right and evidence comes to light which leads to his release from jail and return to the Downton Community,

His Lordship nearly loses the estate because of bad investment judgement and family are forced to consider downsizing. They are saved when his son in law and who will inherit the estate with the death of his Lordship, also inherits money from the family of his former fiancée. He feels he cannot accept until learning that it was the fiancée‘s wish when evidence of a letter comes to light. The Ladyship’s mother comes to visit from the USA played by Hollywood Legend Shirley MacLaine and is feted for her financial help until it is understood her wealth is also tied and she cannot bail the family out.

Having rescued the family Mathew is determined to put the estate on a sound financial footing with new investment equipment and reorganisation and is resisted by the agent and his Lordship. With the land agent resigning after 40 years change becomes a reality and a solution to what to do with the young widower is to make him the land agent for the estate under the supervision of Mathew. The son is christened in the Catholic Church and the Grandparents attend with his Lordship photographed with the Catholic Priest and the Father and his child.

The other daughter is jilted at the altar because of the age difference between her and the suitor and she has written a feminist letter which has been published and the editor wants her to write a regular column much to her father’s opposition. She meets the editor in London who takes a shine and she agrees to become a journalist.

The former maid with illegitimate son gives him up to the grandparents. She has managed an income through prostitution which creates problems with the household and the villagers when she is taken on by Mathew’s mother.

The Housekeeper was thought to have cancer for a time but the tests come back negative. The rogue former Footman and former homosexual lover of a Lord, also war time racketeer thinks as the valet to his Lordship with the incarceration of Bates that he is safe to continue his wicked ways and take a shine to the new footman at the expense of another house staff member who he drops in the proverbials from time to time. However when he misunderstands the interest is reported to the Butler, things now look grim for him much to the delight of her Ladyship’s personal maid who herself has much to answer having been directly responsible for her Ladyship’s miscarriage.

I have watched the episodes of (Young) Merlin, series nine in which Arthur is now King and married to Guinevere the former Lady’s maid to his half sister Morgana who spends all her time plotting to kill Arthur and take the Kingdom. In the two part opening episode Arthur’s Bane he sets off with Merlin to try and find out what happened to his men sent on a surprise attack to rescue other men held from a previous expedition to find out what was going on. They had been betrayed by the daughter of a Druid who was in the service of Guinevere. Morgana was using the men with others as slaves try and find what she thought was an artefact with great powers to foresee the future. What she does not know that the power is a creature who first rescues one of Arthur’s key men and then Merlin himself who the being recognises for his true self. Morgana has a young dragon presumable that from the egg which Merlin had given to the ancient Dragon played by john hurt that previously freed. However as Lord over the Dragons is able to prevent the young dragon doing damage. Merlin is concerned from having a vision in which a young druid who Arthur previously saved will be responsible for the death of the King in a battle. He is a relative of Morgana. When he comes across Merlin and Arthur captured he treats them as prisoners. They manage to escape but are recaptured by Morgana but the young man intervenes stabbing her which allows Arthur and Merlin to survive with the rest of his men. Arthur rewards by making the man a knight but Merlin remains concerned.

In the third episode Arthur’s father returns as a ghost having been unintentionally let out from the spirit world by Arthur’s in search of saying a proper goodbye to his father and seeking the man’s approval. The spirit is opposed to Arthur’s marriage and the way he is running the kingdom and seeks to destroy his son and his son’s wife. With help of Guis, the court Physician Merlin and Arthur are able to send the King back to the spirit world. I watched the fourth episode on Monday on the I player part of the Wii purchase a couple of episodes behind which I will watch on the I player and which followed a familiar pattern with Arthur well motivated but taking irresponsible risks for himself and his men and Merlin still playing the fool of personal assistant, knowing something is wrong which the village idiot would have recognised and allowing Arthur into yet another trap set by the evil Morgana. On one hand the failure to deal with the woman is gross negligence but if they did there would no continuing series.

I am also a couple of episodes possible three behind on Atlantic City the third series which seems more violent, more sexual and without any redeeming features from what I have seen to date. I hope to comment further when I catch up.

I have failed to catch up on the past eight episodes of the final season of the Soprano’s. I did watch the greater part of the Godfather part one recently and was struck was a great film it is compared to most of what has appeared on screens since about the Mafia in the USA,

On Saturday I watched almost all of five episodes of the Mini series of Herman Wouk’s Winds of War with Robert Mitcham and Ali McGraw and Topol have a part as does Ralph Bellamy as President Roosevelt. I was so tired that I recorded what I thought was the final episode only to discover it was the penultimate. Fortunately when I checked the final episode was showing although I missed the greater part but at least saw the conclusion going to bed at 1.30 The six episodes was shown back to back over 12 hours but which long periods of repetitive adverts. The Story is of the Second World War told through the eyes of the character portrayed by Mitcham as a naval officer who is appointed as attaché to Berlin and encounters the Nazi high ups including Hitler. His wife is a political and social embarrassment and serves as a vehicle to illustrative the seductive aspects of the regime. One of his sons baulks the naval tradition and become enamoured with a Jewess, and older woman McGraw who is McGraw torn between the young man and a Diplomat based in Poland. The two meet up through working for an uncle based in Italy and then when she visits Poland to see the diplomat and other family members (Topol) who live close to the German border just before the invasion. They escape with difficulty she to Norway and home to the USA and he to his father in Berlin before also returning to the USA. Mitcham forecasts that Hitler will do a deal with Stalin from his contacts in the Reich which impresses the President who had previously encountered decades before and gets Mitcham to send him private briefings. The series ends with Mitcham going back to sea in command after saying one married son, a naval officer and with the other son in submarine, believed to have been sunk at Pearl Harbour but which turns out to be a mistake. It is not clear if he and Ali have tied the knot or if she has married the Diplomat. His other daughter goes into TV production in New York. His wife seeks a divorce but then changes her mind. The original book has 1000 pages and was followed by War and Remembrance covering the rest. I have purchased both books from Amazon for a total of £12.

I have watched two of the six episodes to be broadcast of Hebburn, which I am finding very funny in part because I know the area well and its people. The series has Vic Reeves as the father and Gina McKee as his wife and is shot on location

There is no time now to write about the Newsroom a brilliant series in style of the West Wing and created by the same team. I will return to this series as I will tot he Sopranos when I move significantly into the new phase in my work and life.

I have come across another film The Thing, A prequel to the 1982 film of the same name. In 1982 an extra terrestrial vehicle is discovered below Antarctic ice by a Norwegian research team. They then discover what appears to be the dead remains of someone from the machine and remove the body into camp only to discover that it is not dead but has the capacity to hide in the bodies of selected human beings in such a way that most people will not detect the transfer.

The object of the creature is to escape from the area and multiply among the general population. Stopping the creature is led by Palaeontologist Kate Lloyd with the detection method to look at his teeth of other unit members as the creature cannot cope with metal fillings and a mouth will reveal this except for those who other forms of fillings, or the absence of any metal implants in their body. At the end of the film when it looks she and other members of team who survive are successful, a dog runs off, implying that he Thing has become the creature. I understand this is how the first film opened. Clever as it will make a number of viewer go to the original film. Not I thought.

New Tricks Series 9 four episodes

On October 25th I caught up on Monday night’s edition of New Tricks after making notes on the episode the week before and just about recovering from the loss of James Bolam from the series and not too sure about his replacement Steve McAndrew played by Dennis Lawson. The episode last night was scheduled for next week and the BBC decided to pull the planned episode because irony of ironies it covered under age sex in a children’s home in Glasgow and would have been shown half an hour before the Panorama special on Jimmy Saville.

I was uncertain about the continuation of the series until two strong stories in two weeks has made a significant difference to my original view following the departure of one of my favourite TV actors and character actors of all time, particularly because of his performance in the Beiderbecke tapes.

Two weeks ago I was fully engaged with the Blue Flower. Papers were found in a lock up which related to a man whose killing by a knife would was unsolved five years before. The man was an East German who had come to the UK as soon as the Berlin Wall was removed and was still looking for his daughter some 15 years later.

He and his wife had attempted to enter the West a couple of years before wall came down and they were caught at the wire fence, although with only a sufficient hole to pass their baby through to the waiting helpers, and organisation called the Blue Flower whose members attempted to infiltrate government organisations in East Germany, including the secret police, in order to undermine the regime. While the Wall divided Berlin the boundary between East Germany and West Germany in general was fortified but not as by a wall.

The papers found in the lock up garage suggested he had access to personal documents and his work had been at a local refuse centre as a picker someone who checked the contents of bins on a conveyer belt in order to remove any documents such as bills which were then shredded. While this line of inquiry had outcomes it did not prove central to the main story. When the team visit the Refuse centre they are met with hostility by the manager and by the person in charge of the conveyor belt system. Jerry takes the opportunity while the new man engages the head to check out the office of the man controlling those on the conveyor belt and discoverers a store of personal data confirming the involvement with Data theft. However the team are warned off because a special squad are investigating an international Identity theft operation which the Refuse centre is providing with info. They have a man working on the team. Nevertheless two of the team members attend a club having found a note of a meeting that evening. This proves to be an arrest sting by the special squad who are no amused at the continuing interest of the UCOS, who are helpful apprehending the Manager when he attempts to evade capture. It is therefore evident that the death of the East German is not related to his work at the Refuse centre.

The East German man had spent a couple of hours every day close to the centre of Shepherds Bush, near the Market at the busiest time, before going on to work hoping to catch sight of his daughter. although how he obtained a current photo was never explained. She had been adopted but comes to the UK and had got into trouble. It is through this, that her DNA and her location are traced, although it is not clear how such a link was possible. What I question is that given the skills of the father as a former member of the State Secret Police that he was unable to find or that his talents were not taken up by a private security or detective agency because as it transpires he was one of the good guys.

In fact at first UCOS had no inkling about why the man was standing on a street corner for 2 hours and the background to his activity until they went to the scene at the same time he did and encountered the mother of a boy who had played chicken with a friend and been knocked down and killed by a passing taxi cab whose driver had no opportunity to stop. The mother had visited the site of his death every day then as she had continued to do, delivering flowers from the nearby florist where she worked as manager and despite her tragic story she became my number one suspect,

Examination of the records concerning the death of the son confirmed that the driver was no responsible, a verdict which the mother continued not to accept. Contact with the driver reveals him to be good man haunted by what happened. What emerges is that in fact the East German man had not been after the Taxi driver as a friend of the mother but he had had become concerned that she was set on revenge while her balance of mind was understandably disturbed.

Too late the team appreciate that their investigation has rekindled the mother’s inability to accept that the boy’s death was self inflicted. They find she had stabbed the Taxi driver who remains fighting for his life at the end of the programme. She has taken an overdose but insufficient for her to be taken in to police custody for the assault and the death of the East German man who she admits was stabbed accidentally by her as he attempted to take the knife from her that she intended to use on the Taxi driver.

The team have located the daughter but she runs away having become hostile to all authority figures. The find a memory stick which reveals that she is responsible for a Blog on the activities of the Blue Flower the organisation which enabled her to be brought up in the West.

All the available evidence to the Team and to the daughter indicate that her father had been responsible for the arrest of his wife as she attempted to escape with the child to west as the girl urgently needed medication not readily available in East Germany at the time. As a consequence of his action as a member of the secret police his mother, who had become a member for the Blue Flower organisation had died in custody.

The florist who had killed him does inform the UCOS team that as he died he had uttered a phase in German which translated means the Blue Flower. The team had examined his former residence in a hostel type block which is now empty awaiting demolition. Nothing had been found at the time or since. They make a separate visit and work out that the dimensions of the room suggest not just a hidden compartment but a significant storage area, reached by pressing a flower on the wallpaper behind a wardrobe which has been coloured Blue. That he was able to construct the room and has amassed a vast quantity of material is not questioned by the team but from photos on display and from the journal they learn the truth. Both had been members of the Blue Flower organisation but having only been able to ensure the child was rescued it was the mother who had the idea that the husband should arrest her and therefore protect his position and be able to escape, find his daughter and tell her the truth of what happened.

The team are therefore able to show the daughter the room and his work as well as the photos so she can reappraise her views and feelings about the man. Despite some of the flaws in the storyline the episode had the feel of authenticity, because it was so sad, with the man dying before completing his mission. He had been able to trace the girl to Shepherds Bush and had stood close to the Market entrance for an hour or more before undertaking his work shift in the hope of seeing the daughter presumably having gained a recent photo, although this was also not made clear. He had done this for year upon year in all weathers. At the end she has the new understanding to comfort her but as with many such stories in real life there was no happy ending

The latest episode Part of a Whole ticked many boxes of interest and in terms of storyline about the machinations of the Secret Service and their engagement with criminals for political purposes.

Stephen Fisher an urbane and apparently cold heated senior figure in the British Security Services has from time to time intervened in the activities of UCOS and until now appeared to have some kind of hold over the Deputy Assistant Metropolitan Commissioner, DACC Strickland, one of whose functions is to supervise the activities of the UCOS team under the Unit Leader played by Amanda Redman and to set their priorities and work programme.

As the episode begins Fisher returns to his bachelor flat and senses and spots something is wrong to exit quickly before it is blown up leaving the assassins to conclude he has died, something which the media accept was a gas explosion death. Strickland summons the full team to meet him at an out of town shopping centre car park to explain that their involvement while concerned with the death of a Journalist several decades before not only directly involves Fisher but himself as they had been part of a team assembled to undertake an illegal break in for their country to find out what the Journalist had known. The contents of the files had been photographed in relation to his work uncovering something related to Terrorist organisation in Northern Island and a well known crime boss in London although at the time they had known very little about what they were doing except it was in the national interest.

The Journalist had been killed in a hit and run in the presence of his then nine year old daughter who had never accepted that the death was accidental. When recently preparing to put a home on the market the daughter had come across a set of papers from those days, spreadsheets full of figures with one page missing. When older she had gone to a fellow journalist friend of her father about her concerns and he had promised to investigate but had never come back to her. She had more recently gone back to the police an somehow, I cannot remember how, the information had come to the attention of Stephen Fisher who understandably had commenced to make inquiries of his own and this had ignited the touch paper for the past to intrude on the present in such a dramatic way..

When interviewed the journalist first pretends ignorance and substantiates the original story but when interviewed more formally he confesses that he was aware more of the investigation that had been undertaken at the time but had become scared on learning that the principal target had been a major London Criminal of his day.

Meanwhile Strickland has set about contacting the other members of the unit that broke into the home of Journalist for the government. He finds that one has already died in an alleged accident and the second appears to have died from a heart attack. At this address he finds Fisher there, The find that a another colleague was at a Security Service safe house having received the warning message from the man who had alerted Fisher and Strickland to meet her with Fisher going in and Strickland waiting outside in the car,

Meanwhile Jerry and the new man have leaned on a snout who admits that it was the Crime boss who hired the hit men that placed the bomb in the flat of Fisher and who would appear to be responsible for the other deaths. The criminal is also identified from the papers provided by the daughter and he is visited by the team and shows contempt for their interest revealing that he remains a Secret Service Asset. This explains why suspicion since the death of the Journalist that the Criminal was involved in Drugs Prostitution and people trafficking and various other criminal activities but was never charged.

Jerry and he new man have been keeping an eye on one of the men of the Crime boss at a cafe and manages to learn by subterfuge that two men on a motor bike are going to an address which they follow and which happens to be the road where the safe house is located. As luck and good scripting would have it the killers arrive as Fisher is leaving the house and he is shot twice in the chest but not mortally. One of the two men is hit and injured by the vehicle of Jerry and the new man. The other escapes. The injured is chased down to a car park where he is about kill Jerry but fortunately one of the other original unit members who has also been trailing UCOS team members is on hand to kill the assassin before he can shoot Jerry. The team then pull a stunt which gets the phone off the man who had received the tip off call that led the assassin to the safe house indicating that the tip had come from within the service.

Strickland had visited one of the original unit members and his wife. It was a challenge for him to make the visit because he had a serious affair with the wife although it was not clear of this was before or after they had married. Since leaving the service the man had become a successful investment banker and very wealth and well connected. It then transpires that the phone call came not from the man but his wife who had been in the security services since recruited direct from Oxford.

The reason why Strickland was sure this couple were involved in the break in, in seeing the missing secret document, in the death of the journalist and in subsequent and more recent attacks and deaths comes from Brian working out that the missing papers of the inquiry team into the death of the had been hidden in another file. When this file was looked at it appeared to reveal nothing as the witnesses were unable to identify anything about the car however what they did say prompted the team to revisit the daughter and she recounted how she had been pulled back from the car by a woman who had sat on a park bench said she would return but never did. Although it happened decades before she might remember the woman from her eyes and who had spoken she remembered the woman talking to another man on the scene. Other witnesses had seen the woman before that day one at a cafe where the father had taken the daughter for some food. It all suggested that the woman had been following.

The story that unfolded also had a ring of potential authenticity as had the Blue Flower. The criminal had been used as an informant on the terrorist group in Northern Ireland through selling those drugs and whose information had contributed to the eventual peace process. He had therefore been protected since despite his continuing criminal operations. The husband had seen the missing document which provided him information which tied the payments being processed for the trafficking involved. The journalist had been taken out by the criminal without the approval of the Secret Service but the couple had been protecting him since. And provided the information when Fisher started to ask awkward questions which led to the attempts on his life and those of the other members of the team.

Strickland was able to blackmail the couple into upping sticks and departing these shores with their ill gotten gains and at the price of the criminal and the other assassin and crime gang’s members being “give” to the police for prosecution.

This still left UCOS with a sour taste although Fisher was intent on doing some of his own sorting when he returned after recovering from the bullet wounds.

The other two earlier programmes proved less interesting. One concerned a poet whose body had been found burned and where a loan shark who was imprisoned always claimed he was not guilty. Jerry was hostile to poetry until he discovered it could be effective as a means of engaging young women in conversation and turning their heads. Woman are throwing themselves at the best friend of the dead poet who had since become a nationally and internally known name and wealthy. A kind of John Betjeman of his day!

The crux of this case was that the poet in question did not die but was secreted away for decades and which solved one of the mysteries of someone who went missing at the same time and who could not be found. His accomplice was someone who was viewed as a suspect, commercially successful contemporary poet whose work had suddenly taken off with the death of his friend and where the finger was pointed out by someone who recognised some of her former boyfriend’s personal experience in the latest published volume which the author could not known have about. The reality was that because he was officially dead the poet had passed his continuing work to his friend to be published as his so they were both able to make a good living, one in comparative seclusion although it amazes me how people are supposed to be able survive in such ways without needing a doctor, dentist, bank accounts and other services where accurate personal information and proof are required in the first instance of registering.

The other story was about tennis and the suicide of a brilliant young tennis player shortly after she had lost an important game to her rival. There were suspects galore in this, a separate/divorced addict of a father with gambling debts who had asked the girl to lose to stop him being beaten up. The girl’s agent because she had said she was going to leave, also her main rival and the rival’s mother. The culprit was the girl’s own mother in terms of a manslaughter charge after her daughter had lost the match upset with news that her younger sister had gained a scholarship position with the tennis coach who had abused her and groomed others and where the mother knew but did not want to jeopardise the financial success which would have come from both talented daughters. The girl had lost the crucial game and confronted her mother after learning her young sister had been given a scholarship to work with the coach and the mother had then visited the daughter to prevent her going to the police leading to the girl toppling from the roof garden of her flat. The rival to the girl had been in the flat in the toilet at the same time and knew somebody had been present and told her mother who had persuaded her not to say anything. Although the two girls had been rivals on the court they had been friends of it contrary to popular understanding which causes UCOS to commence on the wrong track. The episodes could have been called Mothers or Some Mothers more accurately.

In both programmes a number of individuals could be expected to be sent to prison as part of justice system involvement.

Romanzo Criminale second series episodes 3 to 5

It was a good decision to separate the first two episodes of the second and last season of Romanzo Criminale which entered a significant new phase with the third shown on Tuesday evening October 2^nd in the UK. A feature of this series is that there are few good people. The time setting of the series coincides with the discovery of Roberto Calvi

’s body found hanging under a bridge in London, the then Chairman of the Italy’s largest private bank which collapsed and was known for being the Bank used by the Vatican, the Mafia for laundering money and infamous Masonic Lodge P2 regarded as a state within a state with the most prominent and well known figure the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlosconi, one of whose publications was behind the criminally obtained photos of Duchess of Cambridge while she and her husband were on holiday.

The episodes open with men from the Italian security services filming a prominent Italian Member of Parliament enjoying a bondage and sadism session at the brothel operated by Patrizia the woman companion of Dandi, one of the key figures in the Rome drug distribution gang. This coincides with a raid by the Police Commissario whose purpose was to put pressure on its manager to yield the dirt on Dandi and other gang hierarchy and to yield to him. The discovery of the Member of Parliament being filmed enabled the Government officers to be arrested and charged with attempted blackmail and the tape of the session held as evidence. When the Member of Parliament requests the tape and the Commissario refuses despite the offer of being made a police chief, the girl involved changes her story and says the film was being made by the subject for his private use, this part of the case has be dropped and the film handed over. We know that the girl was offered a significant amount of money to change her story and the same again if the outcome was the return of the tape. However it does not lead to the release of the security men who are told they will stay in prison for a time by their immediate boss so as to keep below the radar.

The holding in custody, a feature of the Italian system without bring to trial for up to a year is one to perils of travel in that country/ Patrizia is stripped and examined on arrival in custody and Dandi keeps his distance. When her only visitor apart from the Commissario is her faithful assistant who presses Dandi for news about getting her out of prison and if he has a message for her. Dandi says she is always in his thoughts which the Commissario says means she must fend for herself. Dandi is prepared to abandon his woman when the Mafia make doing so and finding himself a proper wife a condition of their intention to make him head of the Rome drug distribution. When the Inspector decides that she can be released on bail and Dandi goes to meet her she tells him to get rid of the flowers he has brought and then drives of in the car he has travelled. She then calls on the Inspector and takes him to a hotel for sex. She is not yet done with Dandi.

Meanwhile Dandi is apprehended by the former Drug distribution king for a major part of Rome who still provides the Gang with their Cocaine supply, Sardo, of the Sardinians who supplies via the Comorra of Naples and area, Mafia like but with a single hierarchical command. He demands a doubling of his take and control of the area previously operated by the assassinated Lebanese. He tells Dandi that their problem is Freddo and demands that Dandi helps them get rid of Freddo by bringing him to them. Dandi who I think is tempted by the offer, given the likelihood he would be taken out if he refuses is also approached by the rest of the gang who had previously waited in his home uninvited to express their discontent that a woman and someone previously unconnected with them had been put in control of the sector previous controlled by the Lebanese. Dandi tells the other members he has a solution.

Freddo arrives on his motorcycle separate from Dandi in his expensive racing type car and while Freddo is frisked for a weapon Dandi is allowed his because of Sardo’s intention they should take Freda out. Instead Dandi shoot Sardo dead in the head while the rest of the gang have come through woods and fencing and take out the guards. The price for Freddo release is Lebanese’s sector which is to be shared. Freddo tells the girl offering her to manage his area. She refuses. Suggesting that he is no longer in charge.

Whether it arose from his night with Patrizia, the Commissario gets a warrant to inspect the offices of the Ministry where at the ground level with an external door and locked armoured door behind which is the arsenal of the gang. The security man, paid to the keep door closed. is able to identify that all the members of the gang used the facility but they are tipped off and disappear before they can be arrested. They go in hiding to a place used by Sardo where they are contacted by the Comorra and invited to the meeting with the head to discuss business; Instead he demands to know what happened to Sardo or who was responsible for his disappearance. They have two days and they take Freddo as prisoner who will be killed if their concerns are not resolved.

Dandi first uses the girl friend of the “Kid“, killed in the attack on the Deputy chairman for the Mafia in relation to the P2 and Bank scandal. She is tasked to contact the child of the security guard who continues to go to school while his father and mother are in protective custody. She gives the boy a message whispered in his ear which had the desired effect. He retracts his statement alleging that the only person with whom he had contact was the Lebanese. He is released on bail but will still go to prison because he provided the place for the weapons for significant payment. However this means the rest of the gang are able to return to Rome without fear of immediate arrest.

However the security officer is not off the hook because those examining the weapons discover that the gun used to kill Leban is one of those found. As the Inspector tells the security guard, how is it the weapon found its way back, by a ghost? Someone must have asked the security guard to open the door!

Dandi approaches the Mafia to see if they are willing to help secure the release of Freddo. They ask him to do a favour via a third party. This is to kill Nemo, one of their mutual associates and weapons expert. They do not tell Dandi but Nemo and the Kid were responsible for the taking out of Lebanese for the Mafia. They tell Nemo to disappear because the gun has been found as well as the gun used in the attack on the deputy bank manager and other killings. Dandi appears to decline because he does not know who the third party is. He gets Nemo to arrange an immediate fresh gun supply in exchange for new identity documents which he pays a source exceptionally well to deliver quickly.

Nemo secures the required weapons from a Professor a Fascist who has accumulated weapons for an uprising, They pay him 2 million lire despite his wanting 4. Dandi insists the young man accompanies them on an arrange exchange for Freddo. The rest of the gang and Nero are under the impression they are about to go to war with the Comorra to get Freddo back. However Dandi is showing himself worthy of being groomed to be the new King of Rome by the Mafia. He shoots Nemo in front of the Comorra saying the man was responsible for the death of Sardo.

He suggests to the Don, the head criminal, that surely it would be better that the gang is allowed to peddle their drugs throughout Rome than engage in war. The head recognises how ruthless and single minded Dandi has become and accept the deal releasing Freddo.

They return to the Sardo hideaway where news comes that the security has changed his story and they can return to Rome in time to witness the last moments of the World Cup 1982 in which Italy beats Germany 4.1 leading to wild celebrations throughout Rome. Dandi gives the rest of the gang the explanation why he sacrificed Nemo without making reference to the Lebanese, although Nemo had admitted that he had pulled the trigger for the Mafia. He sends Freda home knowing that he has saved him twice from death recently.

He calls on the girl to thank her for doing the set task and she says it was a test because he suspected she had said where their guns were being held. She tells Dandi to look closer to home, suggesting to us that she knows it was Patrizia, Dandi leaves saying that Freddo is home and alone without anyone to celebrate the World Cup win. He seems to now be in control of the girl.

Meanwhile the Inspector has recognised the girl in two photos associated with surveillance of the gang and starts to keep personal watch seeing Dandi arrive and then leave. He then tails the girl as she makes her way to the home of Freddo and through a window sees the couple begin to have sex. Dandi meets the Mafia and wants to know why Lebanese was killed. He is told that Lebanese had become mad and out of control. In any event he was taken out to make it easier for Dandi to become the new King of Rome a title which they now officially crown him. He asks, “what of Freddo,” and the reply is that this is for Dandi to decide. It is a night for celebration and not for questions.

In the fifth episode the disintegration of the original gang and the elevation of Dandi in terms of personal wealth and potential power under the direct control of the Mafia continues. He is offered a land deal which involves the purchase of a substantial area of farming land which will yield tremendous returns when Italy gain the World Cup and which they did in 1990 thus suggesting the Mafia money was behind the decision and also the selection of sets including new ground developments. Over the series we have seen the private accommodations of the gang members and their associates improve exponentially in terms of locations, sizes and quality of furnishings including original artwork. This was the era when internationally the Mafia and other criminal networks and known to have intensified their move into legitimate business in which to launder their criminally obtained money primarily from drugs, gambling, prostitution and human trafficking.

A side story is one of the members of the gang who has invested heavily in a supermarket run by his father in law, Perfumery for his wife and another enterprise but as no elementary business skills fails to keep up with bank loan repayments and is threatened with foreclosures if he does not come up with 200 million lire a modest some say around 100000 euros given the millions of euros involved in the drug trade alone. He turns to everyone except Dandi and then agrees to torch the supermarket but the insurance refuses to pay based on the assessment that the blaze was professionally ignited. He eventually turns to Dandi who agrees to the give him the money but takes two of the premises in exchange leaving him and his wife with the perfumery.

The main story of this episode is the fate of the two gang members in prison because of the failed attempt to kill the man they believed was responsible for the death of Lebanese and when Dandi got cold feet in the get away car and drove off. Freda has a plan well used by others to have is closest ally declared unfit to plead and moved to a psychiatric institution from which he can expect to be discharged within a couple of years compared to the 30 anticipated from the charges. Freddo is confident because the psychiatrist appointed by the court is known for being bribable. Unfortunately before he can submit his report the Mafia decide that he is to be killed for taking money from a number of sources other than they authorise and they ask Dandi to arrange this but Freddo insists that they wait until after the submission. The man is nevertheless found dead and the two gang members are sentenced to 24 and 28 years respectively.

Freddo is incensed and accuses Dandi who denies that he killed the man so Freddo orders everyone to go out and find who is responsible. By this time the girl previously taken on to run Lebanese territory, but removed when Dandi saves Freddo from the Comorra, advises a name in the territory of other gang members where the takings are down 30% allegedly because someone is also selling drugs from a different source.

Freddo then discovers that the man was actually killed by his new girl friend paid for by Dandi who is able to say he did not kill the man himself. Freddo realises that he is no longer dictating what the gang should do, moreover one of the men sentenced effectively to life imprisonment tells Freddo that it was not Gemito and his brother who killed Lebanese as the gun came from their own arsenal of weapons, something which Dandi knew and kept from him and the others.

Meanwhile those controlling the area with the taking down, kill the man fingered by the girlfriend despite being told to bring the man to Freddo, suggesting that it one of the area controllers who in fact as been selling drugs from another source and now covering their tracks. Dandi remains convinced, rightly, that it was Patrizia who revealed the location of their weapons arsenal in retaliation for being left in prison on the orders of the Mafia as he is told to get himself a regular wife and family. He learns that her homosexual assistant and friend has been sighted in Accona and he arranges for associates to lean on the man to reveal the whereabouts of Patrizia. He finds her running a flower shop and expresses contempt for her and her friend. She sends him packing. Back in Rome Dandi is enjoying a new level of company attending “sophisticated” parties during which he meets and beds an attractive woman from Sweden. They are interrupted by Patrizia who had decided to come back to Rome because she misses the highlife. But she warms Dandi that if he betrays her again she will betray him again to the police. The episode commences with Dandi in prison and being stabbed by one of the men he abandoned at the attempted Gemito killing. It is a nightmare. As is the state of the original gang, one dead, two in prison, one sidelined others with major problems and Dandi another instrument of the Mafia and the Comorra. The near becomes more close.

Celia Imrie Who Do you Think You Are?

Celia Imrie Who do you think you are started as a disappointment because she was only interested in finding historical figures of political importance which given the family tree was not difficult.

One of her great grand parents was a leading Whig, Lord William Russell whose family lived at Woburn Abbey and was executed after a famous Treason Trial as the picked Jury believed he had been threatening the King although his concern was against a Catholic Monarchy and the enforcement of the Catholic religion on the people. When the King died and James I came to throne and established a Catholic monarchy the rebellion led to the arrival of William of Orange and the establishment of constitutional monarchy and quashing of the indictment against Russell who was declared a hero and Martyr and the great defender of Constitutional Monarchy as a plaque remains in Lincoln Inn Fields where he was executed.

She also followed up his grandmother who was a member of the Howard family and engaged married when 13 to someone 14 where the marriage was unhappy and annulled by the Archbishop. She married the Kings Favourite and after two years of marriage and the birth of a daughter she and her husband was tried and convicted of involvement in a murder nut then reprieved although serving sometime in jail. Her marriage broke up and she within ten years of leaving the Tower a comparatively young woman having never known happiness since her Early childhood. I went to bed soon after the news headlines and read more of the Snack Thief.

　

　

Montalbano Season 2 episodes 2 to 5

Today I begin my adoration of the second series shown in the UK of Commissario Salvo Montalbano although I will keep up a diary as I watch or listen to sport and my day on day activities.

While there are other characters in the series, the second being shown on BBC Four in original Sicilian, Italian and Sicilian Italian (reminding me of Gibraltar Spanish and English) Commissario (Inspector) Salvo Montalbano dominates each episode from start to finish.

One reference describes Salvo as honest, loyal and decent but I have to disagree. Although Salvo is basically honest he is prepared to break rules and turn the blind eye but always in the course of justice and fairness as well as from his humanitarianism. He is a good guy. He has strong views about integrity, especially of the police dislikes those who pretend to be what they are not or adopt or misuse the power and privileges of office. He has rime for Aging Mafia bosses who want settle issues in the traditional way as long as they know he will take action against them if they are caught breaking the law.

I describe him best as a man who cares and in last night‘s programmes he cannot bear to look or yet another body of a slaughtered young girl. He is loyal to his men and there are no female police at his station or it appears to be the situation in Sicily, but while his head wants him to be loyal to his long term woman friend, Livia who lives and works in Genoa on the mainland, he only resists some of the opportunities which come his way by women, often younger women who adore his looks, his manner and his role.

In the first season shown on the BBC between February and April she appears in several episodes but so far the second series which commenced in August she has only be heard on the telephone. I do not know is this was a writing decision of the author or something which the TV series adapted because the actress was not available to be filmed although he has engaged in phone calls with her in several episodes of the second series to date

It looked as if the couple would marry and live together during the first series, but the truth is Salvo likes his way of life, his home on the beach and his pasta and his fish. Good food at his favourite restaurant or eating out on his balcony overlooking the sea are as important if not more important than a companion in his bed. Livia and the others with whom he has a relationship know that they are a poor second when he is involved in a troubling case, but when on holiday or with a free weekend, he is with them as any woman could wish, or any partner in a same sex relationship.

I will also remind that while the BBC is showing 16 episodes in two seasons this year in terms of published scheduling, they were first shown in Italy from 1999(2) 2000(2) 2001(2) 2002(4) 2005(2) 2006(2) 2008 (4) AND 2011(3). I am acquiring the books to read 11 so far with six episodes written only for TV and will acquire series 1 DVD 10 episodes in the future. I did write about the first episode in the present series Turning Point based on the book Rounding he Mark so that leaves the five others since to cover.

I will also sat at the outset that setting of Sicily is gorgeous as is the orchestral accompaniment and I am constantly struck by the lack of traffic in his town of Vigata. There is grandeur about the towns and often the houses and flats he visits are huge buildings with large rooms, tall ceilings, great wooden double doors and antique furniture. There is a feeling of space, light and warmth although sometimes it is so hot that they struggle to cope and when it rains, it floods down as I have experienced.

While the series is about the work and life of the Commissario he had a team of three men who have been with him throughout. His deputy Mimi (Domenico Augello), a ladies man who is now married with a child but with a roving eye which he finds difficult to control did consider leaving for the mainland when he became involved with a police woman he had met on a course or conference

Their assistant (Guissope) Fazio, is loyal, dependable and often taken for granted and (Agatino) Catarella, came top of the computer course which amazed everyone, usually goes into doors which he bands, often forgets what he has come into say, manages the front desk, the communications system and the police station as far as one can judge. In addition to Livia Mimi’s wife Beba Beatrice di Leo has become a regular while Mimi’s sister and brother law are visited as Salvo keeps contact with the fostered/ adopted boy that he and Livia nearly adopted after his mother was murdered and his father was found dead in an early first season episode.

I begin with latest episode The Wings of the Sphinx which engaged me throughout and touches on the influence of the Mafia and politicians and others have for self protection. A young woman is found dead, naked on a beach with her face obliterated and a butterfly Tattoo on one shoulder, but she did not die there and had been dead for some 24 hours. Salvo works out that she probably died somewhere which was closed on a Sunday and the body removed to be found before the premises opened. He arranges for the photo of the Tattoo to be shown on TV and he is contacted by an old man who had a carer arranged from him when the relative who looks after him had to be away. The girl was Russian and lived in, she had come to Italy via an organisation and then was helped by an organisation which liked to be called an association and which used volunteers to recruit prostitutes and girl who worked in clubs to save them for a better life and looked after then at an establishment which could accommodate over a dozen of the girls. This girl had suddenly left. It was not the dead girl however but the Tattoo is identical

When Salvo is going home one night he is overtaken by a fast car driven by Ingrid who was part of a previous story with an important husband now a Member of Parliament in Rome, spending a lot of time away. She is also a womanly with a history and I believe she had a temporary relationship with Montalbano. She cancels her engagement claiming a headache after learning that Salvo is on his own and that a meal has been prepared by his housekeeper. Over the meal she asks about his current cases and he mentions the murder and the Tattoo. This startles the woman who mentions that she a live in young female help with a Tattoo on her shoulder who had come from Russia and who had disappeared taken jewellery with her.

The girl has been located by her husband’s accountant who comes to the station after being contacted by the friend and he mentions the association, a charitable body which is run by a priest akin to a bishop. This is an influential man who criticises Montalbano for being five minutes late and who explains that while he is the Patron and Treasurer, he has not met one of the young women in the five years of his involvement. He puts Salvo in contact with his Director of Operations and from that meeting Salvo is taken to where the girls live by two of the volunteers including the man who recruits the girls on Saturday evenings. Afterwards there is a complaint that Montalbano had undertaken a raid on the organisation and he is given only four days to complete investigation by his superiors and told not to upset or involve the Association further except without exceptionally good grounds. Neither of these girls can be found nor the murdered girl named.

Then the elderly man calls on Montalbano and says he saw the girl when returning from a visit by bus heading in the direction of a Parish Church. Salvo visits and finds the priest is working out and a former boxer who denies having contact with the girl or knowing her present whereabouts but expresses strong disapproval of the charitable organisation. Salvo is convinced the priest does know where the girl is but is protecting her.

There are then two developments which enable him to begin to solve the mysteries. The son of his visiting housekeeper who is in prison (covered in a previous episode) asks to see Montalbano to mention unofficially that a hardened criminal who had shared his cell had admitted to being in love with a Russian girl who had lived with him and the man had changed as a consequence. The girl had a butterfly on her shoulder. The man and the girl are not at home when the Commissario visits.

He is then contacted by the fire service because of a fire at a paint shop which is unusual as well as suspicious and where the owner lives in a flat above. The evidence is that the fire started within and where there are no sings of forced entry but it is not an insurance fraud as the man is of good means. Salvo Fazio visits and do a double act in the questioning. They check if the man has a revolver which Salvo points out they will be able to check if it was recently fired. They ask if he has a safe or where does he keep the takings from the weekend and he shows them his desk where the taking before the fire are still kept. Although they leave they expect the man to come to them with an admission. He had been woken at night to find someone in the flat and later followed to where they were riffling the till. He had called for the individual to stop and the pulled trigger killing the person with the second shot fired. This accounted for the traces of material found inside the skull as the thief had covered their face. There have also been traces of a substance used to create gilt effect under the finger nails and when her had fired a quantity of the substance had covered the body. He had found that the person was dead and the female cleaner. He had disposed of the body where it was found and thought he had got away with it but then the news had mentioned that the persons teeth and been smashed by the force of the bullet and would been still at the scene of the murder. For this reason he had attempted to burn down the shop and not just the clothing of the girl and his own.

Then the man who did the recruiting is shot in his car in the face. How can this be? The answer comes with a message from the son of the cleaner in prison to say the likely whereabouts of the criminal who had shared a cell. It was his girl who had been killed and he had taken his revenge in the same manner on the man who recruited her. The man is captured at the place where the son of the cleaner housekeeper said he was likely to be hiding.

Before the capture Salvo received a message from the former boxer priest to say that the missing girl who worked for the old man was with him as was one of the other girls who had been badly beaten up and had come to his home for refuge via the girl already with him. They were both willing to testify in court their story. There were four girls from Russia who had come to Italy with the promise of work via an agency whose families had struggled to find the money for a ticket. Each group of girls was given a different Tattoo and in order to repay the full cost of their passage and stay to those sending them and their families they not only had to work in the clubs but go with men afterwards. The Welfare association seemed a good way as the organisation they would also arrange for their release from their existing contract and commitments. However they were then told to steal jewellery or valuables from where they were placed and they would be able to retain a quarter of the value. It was from a photograph of all four girls together that Salvo was told the dead girl friend had been the girl friend of the criminal. Because of his backgrounds and involvement the welfare group had been unable to do anything when she left them and went to live in with the man but she had wanted to send money to her family and had persuaded to be allowed to work further and agreed to go for the weekend takings at the paint store. The priest urges Salvo to ensure those involved go to prison and he says he will do his best. He is told to pass on the case which he willingly does because of the wish to spend a few days with Livia. He tells the person taking over and the media sufficient to ensure the organisation is exposed despite all those seeking who protect it.

Before saying more about the relationship with Livia there is one other story in the episode which has its amusing moments. Unattractive older women call to say her husband was kidnapped and where inquiries reveal he had money with him and his passport. There has been no request for a ransom although a delay sometimes occurs in such cases. When the media become interested in the story a business man contacts Salvo to say that on a visit to Cuba where he has three girl friends he had seen the missing man in a club with an attractive young woman. He appeals for discretion as he has a wife and child back in Sicily. Salvo arranges for his face to be blocked from the photographic proof with him and breaks the news to his wife who denies it is husband or that he would do something like this. The husband reappears saying he was released and his passport taken as well as the money on him. It appears he is financially dependent on his wife and the kidnapping ploy was a way to get a short break away from her.

At the dinner with Ingrid Salvo admits that he got into a rage at Livia when she returned for the hotel with a male friend and his yacht and he had admitted to her he had a short relationship with a young girl. They had broken up and although he wanted contact again he was not sure of the reception. Ingrid says that given the length of time they were together he should persevere and he attempts to ring her several times without success. Eventually she rings and it is agreed that they will spend a few days together at a neutral venue, but only when the current case is ended.

Because oft he way the case develops Salvo is able to meet her flight and as she has said if he fails to arrive she will return home he books the next fight back to Genoa where she lives. He arrives in the rain and finds that she has set off without her mobile which explains what he was unable to contact her during the day to explain what was happening. She instead of returning had gone to his home when he is able to contact on the land line. It is left open if they get together on the remaining days of his holiday.

　

The previous Saturday’s episode was called August Flame (22 September) with the story from the book August Heat and Mimi has rented a holiday home from where their son disappears and both parents are frantic. Salvo investigates and finds that the boy has gone exploring and has found his way into a sealed second holiday flat built in the cliff side partly under the second. This has nearly been completed with doors and windows ready to be installed but in a way which is not recognisable as a flat from the grounds of the home where Mini and his family are staying.

In a corner there is large chest which when opened reveals the remains of a fifteen year old girl. She has lain there for a number of years and is found to be the identical twin of someone who is now a young woman and who makes a play for Montalbano as soon as she meets him.

Suspicion falls on a number of people as the owner and developer of the holiday home project are identified, including a cranky neighbour while the developer appears to have a cast iron alibi and he is eventually trapped by using the girl as bait and arranging to meet him at the lower home which is the process of being sold after planning permission is contained. The two men who worked on the home are interviewed and eventually eliminated from the investigation. Because of the risk Montalbano gives he girl his gun and when she is attacked she shoots the murderer of her sister dead before Montalbano who is waiting nearby out of sight can intervene. He takes responsibility for the death and the parents of the dead girl buy the holiday complex to leave empty because it had become the grave for one of their daughters. I was left feeling unhappy and concerned at the way the episode ended feeling that the girl had shot the man too readily.

The previous week, the Game of Three Cards was an original telescript with two stories which as far as I can remember are unrelated apart from featuring two single minded women one I will describe as sexually gorgeous who is the wife of a wanted villain on the run who commands the attention of Mimi, causing Salvo concern because of the potential threat to Mimi’s marriage with Beba (Beatrice). Because of the attention he has given to the wife it is Salvo who discovers that the home has several possible exits and possibly a hideaway enabling the husband to visit and leave without being spotted by those keeping watch. The criminal is eventually caught to the relief of Salvo while the wife continues to strut her stuff about the town.

The main story arises when the Commissario is approached before eating at his favoured restaurant by the accountant of a constructor called Tarantino who is said to have been killed when full of drink close to his home in a hit and run. The accountant is convinced there is something wrong with the declared finding. The significant first piece of evidence is that several years before, as much as twenty years prior to the hit and run death a man Rocco Pensinni was convicted of the premeditated death of the partner of Tarantino in order to be able to marry the wife who had become his lover. Why he should have killed then killed partner and faked the death to look like a hit run was something which Salvo rightly questions. It is when a second man is found dead close to the isolated home of a Shepherd and whose features look as if they have been altered that separate events begin to link up. The man, Granieri has been away from Sicily for two decades and was part of a Mafia family, the same family with whom the constructor is found to have had dealings enabling him to win contracts. With the death of his partner he was able to control the whole company.

Granieri is found to have had a distinctive voice, obtained via a phone message. A key person in establishing the connections is the sister of Rocco who is blind but remembers a visitor posing a utility official who called on the day of the murder for which her brother was convicted. She identifies the man as the same as the voice. She also mentions that on the night in question she and her brother had been invited out but he stayed home and she had gone alone. He was staying in because his lover had called and said she would visit as she had done on many previous occasions with the sister hearing her footsteps and going to room of her brother. In this instance she had not come and therefore he had no alibi.

What emerges from flash backs is that the woman wanted the relationship to continue as it was but Rocco could not share with the husband and threatened to tell the husband, his employer that the relationship was continuing having promised that it had ended after it had been discovered by the husband. The lover had threatened to shoot himself thus disclosing to the wife that he had a weapon in his room. What had then happened is that Tarantino wanting to get rid of his partner and the woman Renata de Mora wanting to get rid of her lover and husband had told the assassin about the gun and he had taken it posing as an official and then Renata had failed to turn up which would have given her lover an alibi while the husband was shot. This belief is confirmed after the police had circulated a photo of Granieri and Rocco calls at the station to say he had been contacted by Renata when he was released from prison but he had not responded at first but had then gone unannounced the following day and seen the man in the photo having a heated conversation with his former lover. The man had gone off as soon as Renata had seen him approaching. He had also seen the man observing him at his home.

Salvo put the case against her to Renata and at first she tries to bluff but then admits knowing there is no proof with the death of both the contractor and Granieri. Granieri has come back and killed the contractor although I cannot remember if this was on behalf of the Mafia or on his own account. Rocco visits to say he is making a fresh start in Rome and appears amazing relaxed and accepting about the injustice which led him to spend two decades in jail. The reason why Granieri was found dead close to the Shepherd‘s home is established when it is found that the dead man is the son of the Shepherd. He has killed his son finding out the kind of man he was and pleads with Salvo to be allowed to end his own life with the gun he used on his son. This happens.

In Patience of the Spider which is based on a novel Montalbano is still on official on sick leave when a young girl goes missing and the whole community becomes concerned. The assumption is that she has been kidnapped for ransom. My recollection is that early on I worked out what actually happened and was delighted that Salvo finds a way to temper official justice with great humanity.

Salvo is woken by Catarella at six in the morning and is his usually khack handedness in explaining the situation. At first he is told the scooter of a young girl has been found and then when told the owner is missing Salvo is still not convinced it is a matter for himself and asked for Mimi and Fazio who are also at the scene which only underlines his reaction to getting the call. It is Mimi who has told Catarella to contact his boss and still unconvinced Montalbano challenges Mimi on arriving at the scene to be told the situation looks bad.

I am going to tell the story from the solution backwards. Many years ago the brother of the wife of the girl who has been kidnapped needed a huge amount of money which the family raised but never got back even when their daughter needed money to go away to study. The wife had become sick with the a situation in which despite their lovely home they had come to live on the pension of the husband and the help of his brother who had also loved the wife to the extent that he devoted his life to the couple and his niece rather than lead a separate life apart from his practice as a medical doctor.

Having rescued him the other uncle had turned his back on the family and having prospered was embarking on a political career. His sister’s health had continued to deteriorate, and she had taken to her bed and required 24 hour care shared by her husband and their daughter.

At first Salvo speculates that the daughter had run off unable to cope, perhaps a break down or perhaps she has found someone else other than her boyfriend who is studying law with the ambition to join the police force. Salvo is able to gradually to work out what I suspect from the outset that this was no real kidnapping but a staged action to gain revenge and destroy the reputation of the uncle who had betrayed them and destroyed the life of his sister.

The plan had been executed with the help of the brother doctor and the discrediting was successful and when the Commissario makes the point that he cannot allow them to keep the money the girl explains that it has already been distributed to a dozen international charities, Salvo who has said the visit is not officially is doubly pleased, to have his suspicions confirmed and by finding that the girl was well motivated and has an important future as she goes off to work for an international agency.

He had learned that the girl and the boyfriend did not have sex until the day she disappeared and that on returning to the family she had broken with the young man. Given that she made application for the welfare work months before Salvo knows that she had planned everything during the hours she had spent at her mother‘s bedside.

He had been able to trace where the girl had been kept by enlarge one of the photos which the alleged kidnappers had sent. This enabled him also to get to where the money had been replaced with newsprint notes before the media arrived and printed that the ransom had not been paid. In fact despite the publicity against the uncle would be politician, he had been contacted within moments of the kidnap and asked to pay the ransom which he was willing to do, especially as the kidnapped girl was a close friend of his daughter. The contact was made hours before the same demand was made to the father the girl. It was all fair and a good form of justice.

In the second of the second season episodes Equal Tine Montalbano is convinced hat what appears to have become a Mafia war because of killing is not what it seems but it is only late on the he appreciates there is a connection between the death and the disappearance of a girl from the Ukraine who had been living as a live in help to an elderly man. He had reported to her missing only a couple of days after she had not returned from her day off. We the viewers had seen that a girl with a scooter and been chased by two men in a car and appeared to have gone for help at a home of man living in an isolated cottage.

Catarella when out collecting snails which a relative cooked into a special dish for him then discovers the scooter which he brings into town. Later Salvo finds that on her day off she girl, Eva, had met up with two other economic migrants who express great concern for the welfare of their friend. By checking out the area where the scoot was found Salvo comes to the cottage and its owner who used to be called half witted but also harmless. It is Catarella who also puts Salvo on he train of what happened when he draws attention that although the cottage holder kept a couple of sheep the quantity of dropping suggests visits of a substantial number. In order to confirm the theory he arranges for one of the female friends of the missing girl to dress up exactly and Salvo bring the man and the girl together and from this the man confirms that a Shepherd who it is subsequently established is called the Puppeteer calls on his route around the hills with his flock, brings him cheese, bread and wine when staying the night and had had taken the girl with him as he had on a previous occasion in the instance of another girl from the area who had disappeared several years before. The unit track the Shepherd to his home where they come under fire and it is Catarella who kills the man before Salvo or other members the team are killed. The girl is found and is taken to hospital when he friends are with her. One of the friends gives to Salvo copies of photos she found in the girl’s underwater draw which reveal that he girl had been seeing a married member of a Mafia family the Bonspeniero’s that has started the Mafia War and which Salvo had major doubts.

The man had run a quarry business for his father and his wife tolerated his affairs with girls until in this instance it became serious and he wanted to leave her for the younger woman. What is then established is that the wife and used one of her men to kill her husband who was first hit on the head and then shot to make it look like a Mafia revenge killing. She had then made the mistake of ordering the death of the girl who recovers and is able to confirm the relationship and intention for them to be together with Salvo who summons the heads of the two Mafia families, he orders the man responsible for the original murder to give himself up and fort he wife to present herself at the police station for questioning. The man gives himself up, but the woman had to be arrested at the Quarry at which she had taken over its management. She commits suicide rather than be taken. I have thirteen of the fourteen books of those translated into English including the episode next week. There are two later books yet to be translated which included.