THE CATALANOTTI METHOD – Carmelo Catalanotti was murdered by a stab to the chest, but this murder if only for the strange composure of the body and the absence of blood, immediately presents something strange. Montalbano soon discovers that the victim was a loan shark, albeit in a fair way or at least not particularly greedy. But Catalanotti was not just a usurer, he was above all a fervent and original theatre artist, soul and founder of Trinacriarte, a very active amateur theater company from Vigàta.

The Trinacriarte is not a simple amateur company, a good many of its members are literally possessed, if not possessed by the passion for the theater. Carmelo Catalanotti was the guru of this group, a guru who knew how to be brilliant, but also cruel and sadistic. So much so that Montalbano realizes that it is precisely in his tragic art and his very personal and disturbing Method in which the solution lies to the mystery of his death.