Jissokta l-każ ta' Saver u Ludmilla De Molizz

by Clare Azzopardi, Mark Scicluna (Illustrator)

It-tielet ktieb - tant mistenni - fis-saga tal-aħwa De Molizz u t-tfal ta' Frulli Frilli

U hekk spiċċa l-każ ftit dubjuż
b'Ludmilla u Saver il-pompuż.
Jekk għadek ma bdejtx
u l-paġni ma flejtx,
qed ngħidlek, Saver diżastruż!

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Clare Azzopardi (1977) is an award-winning writer who writes for both children and adults. She is the Head of Department of Maltese at the University of Malta Junior College and for the past several years has been an active member of Inizjamed, an NGO whose mission is to promote literature in Malta and abroad. With Inizjamed, she has co-organised literary festivals and workshops, often in collaboration with Literature Across Frontiers (LAF). Her work has been translated into several languages and has appeared in a number of collections including Transcript, In Focus, Cúirt 21, Skald, Words without Borders and Novel of the World. Her play L-Interdett Taħt is-Sodda was published in French (Éditions Théâtrales, 2008) and in Arabic (I-ACT, 2009). Azzopardi has also published 2 books of short stories for adults, both of which won the National Book Prize for Literature – Il-Linja l-Ħadra (The Green Line) and Kulħadd ħalla isem warajh (The names they left behind). Her latest collection will be also published in Croatian and Hungarian. She was one of the 10 Europe’s New Voices in 2016.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I usually focus on adult novels in my reviews, (I read children's books for work) I have a soft spot for Clare Azzopardi De Molizz (a pun on the word demolition) series. Jissokta l-każ ta' Saver u Ludmilla De Molizz (Ludmilla and De Molizz's last case) is the third, and possibly, final book in this trilogy.

The plots themselves are simple. Saver De Molizz comes from a background where schools are given importance. This creates a reaction within Saver and his aim is destroy schools. His plans usually work but then are thwarted by a group of schoolkids, investigators and a particularly intelligent cat and ends up in prison. This time round Saver escapes and finds a partner in crime in the form of Ludmilla. Throw in elements of the Pied Piper and some surreal elements and one has a good strong story.

However what makes these books stand out is that Clare Azzopardi utilises post modern devices in this series and in this volume there are way more than in the previous two volumes: There are surprise chapters , extra chapters, non chronological segues, some paragraphs are upside down, the footnotes are on illustrations of legs and some consist of the characters arguing with the author. Font sizes change regularly and the last chapter consists of an actual letter in an envelope written by one of the characters- This book is a veritable playground.

Although I think the first volume of the series is the strongest storywise, this volume is the more inventive one. I doubt there will be another volume but I do have to admit I'd like to see which direction it would take.