Good whodunnit stories have always been very popular with us Maltese. We tend to devour the various detective and thriller novels, and many of us - let's be honest - are addicted to detective series on television.

And one of the most-watched series - broadcasted on Rai Uno in Italian but watched around the world, also in Malta - is that of Inspector Montalbano. Created by Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri, who, as the surname indicates, is of Maltese origin, Inspector Montalbano stole the hearts of millions of people with his unorthodox investigations and colleagues from the imaginary Sicilian village of Vigàta.

We are acquainted with the vicissitudes of Montalbano through the television series, but perhaps not enough people realise that his investigations were originally novels, later adapted for television. The novels narrating Montalbano's mysteries have been translated into many languages. Except into Maltese.

Up until now... award-winning author Antoinette Borg has in fact just translated Inspector Montalbano's first case. Published by Merlin Publishers, it is entitled Il-forma tal-ilma.

Luparello, a prominent political figure in the town of Vigàta, is found dead with his trousers round his knees. The body is found in his car, parked in a trash-dumping site known as la mànnara, the Pastures - a land previously used to graze goats, now a den for drug dealers and prostitutes. Everything indicates that Luparello died a natural death during sexual activity with an unknown person.

However, Inspector Montalbano is not easily fooled. Something seems not quite right. In spite of pressure from the Commissioner of Police, the inquiring magistrate and even the bishop, he is not ready to close the case before he discovers the truth behind Luparello's death. With patience and cunningness, he investigates the case finding himself unearthing murders, corruption, organised crime and firepower, all with the magical backdrop of the Sicilian landscape.

To translate into Maltese such a towering work as is Andrea Camilleri's, is not a mean feat and it had to be an author and translator of Borg's calibre - she has won multiple awards including the National Book Prize and Best Emerging Author - to accomplish the task successfully.

Such an ambitious project would not have been possible without the financial aid of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Maltese outpost of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, as well as the National Book Council's Book Fund.

Il-forma tal-ilma is available from all leading bookshops or directly online with free local postage from merlinpublishers.com