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Reading what must be my tenth Andrea Camilleri mystery featuring Inspector Montalbano, I was struck by a few mysteries of my own: Why, when there are so many authors and books to read, do I choose to read what pretty much amounts to the same book over and over? Secondly, why among all the series in the world, do I choose this one?

Here’s how the typical Inspector Montalbano book goes:

Our hero wakes up, thinks of dreams, food and his faraway girlfriend, Livia. The phone rings to alert him to or he witnesses something odd that leads to a can of worms. At his office, Catarella mangles the language and bursts through doors for comic relief. Other running gags involve Salvo Montalbano’s relationships with his superiors and colleagues in other departments.

Montalbano meets a woman who seems to fall in love with him. There is also the constant sexual tension between him and his friend Ingrid. Livia calls on the phone, gets mad, but they always seem to make up. The activities of small-time crooks may have Mafia connections. After many wrong turnings, Inspector Montalbano solves the case and sets up a trap for the criminals. In between, he eats a lot and makes acerbic remarks about Italian politics.

That more or less covers it. Yet, there I am, taking yet another one from the shelf.

Perhaps this has to do with having had a pleasant experience and wanting to relive it. Maybe it’s laziness, not wanting to be challenged. Maybe it’s comforting to know exactly what you’re getting into.

Which is strange. Because, if you ask, I’ll tell you what I want in a book is to be surprised, to have a unique experience. And yet what I read tells a different story, being the same story over and over… So I have to put up my hands and admit I’m intellectually lazy, more of a comfort seeker than I’d like to think.

As has been suggested, readers want to be surprised moment by moment, but not by the overall experience. That would explain why the most successful authors become brands, repeating the same formula until they’re rich and worn out enough not to care any more.

This still wouldn’t explain why, in choosing an Andrea Camilleri book, I bypass all the other new mystery series books on display. What is it about Camilleri’s books that’s so appealing?

The plots are clever, hang together and move quickly, but that probably goes for nine out ten other mystery novels. The writing is full of local colour and snappy dialogue, but that probably goes for eight out of ten other mystery novels. The character of Montalbano is mildly interesting, but certainly not inspired, which – just to bedevil the numerical sequence – probably goes for ten out of ten other mystery novels.

So why am I a repeat offender when it comes to these books and no other? … A case for Inspector Montalbano, I suppose.

It wasn’t a bit like the time I ran full-tilt into singer José Feliciano. There he was, a blind man trying to cross a foreign airport terminal and some kid comes crashing into him. I still feel bad about that. No, I’ve never encountered Paco Ignacio Taibo II in the flesh. Nor, for that matter, had I met any other Paco Ignacio Taibo – number one, three or whatever.

I didn’t even know PIT II, as he apparently refers to himself, existed until I sort of bumped into him by accident.

What happened is this: I wandered into a library over lunchtime and saw they had some old books for sale – three books for two dollars. Almost straightaway, I spotted two books I wanted. But taking only two seemed like a waste, so what to do about a third?

I looked through the names, but nothing rang a bell. I was running out of time. Never one to say no to a cheap crime novel, I ended up taking one marked with the library’s gun-sticker, the icon they use for crime stories – No Happy Ending by Paco Ignacio Taibo II. I could always throw it away if it’s useless, I thought.

When I finally started reading the book, I was completely unsuspecting. I was just going to read a bit to see if it grabbed me.

Many books, I must confess, don’t pass the first sentence test for me. Others I stay with for a paragraph or a page or a chapter and if I still haven’t felt that frisson of excitement – either because of style or content – that’s it. Some I return to later, when a different mood or mindset might make me more susceptible to whatever the book has to offer. Others never see me again.

This one started with direct speech: “There’s a dead Roman in the bathroom.” Turned out to be a Roman centurion in full regalia. This in Mexico in what is presumably the late 1970s.

Okay, so now I’m interested. On top of that, the writing has a certain nonchalance, an authentic style, which in itself is a rare enough thing.

About 170 odd pages later (and yes, they are odd), I want to fling the book down. The hero just died…

This is upsetting in the extreme. Heroes don’t die, not in entertaining crime novels. But then, this one is called… No Happy Ending. A bit of a clue, that.

Apart from the fact that this is one awesome little book, the incomparable Paco Ignacio Taibo II then wrote a sequel. Yup, a sequel. Not a prequel, a sequel. As in set after the events of No Happy Ending. Featuring the same detective who died in the first book…

How he does it? Sheer genius. I bow down, overawed.

To some, Elmore Leonard is famous for writing Get Shorty. To others, he’s the cool crime writer who leaves out the parts readers usually skip. Some may even remember him for his early Westerns like Hombre. Not many will equate his name with a book that is neither Western nor crime story.

It is called The Juvenal Touch or sometimes simply Touch. It is the story of a religious man with healing powers. There is some nefarious goings on, but that’s not the focus of the story.

An example to illustrate: “I was up north.” Not giving anything away.It has all the other hallmarks of vintage Leonard though. The sparse writing that makes him arguably the easiest of all writers to read. The cool, smart characters. The crackling dialogue, often followed by interpretive phrases that wouldn’t pass muster on MS Word spellchecker. (The dreaded “Fragment” fault.)

In fact, Touch is a more typical piece of Elmore Leonard writing than at least one of his full-on crime books, Split Images. If I haven’t read all of Elmore Leonard’s books, I’ve read nearly all, and Split Images is the most ambitious structurally and darkest in tone of the lot. It’s the only one that ends on a downer. Truth be told, it reads like all of it was written by a man on a downer.

The Juvenal Touch is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s an uplifting book. It is the book of a hopeful romantic, without the tough veneer that seemingly comes with the territory in crime stories. (Here’s a thought: Can anyone think of a tender crime story?)

If I had little time to live and could only reread one Elmore Leonard book, Touch would be it.

Of the many others, I’d probably pick something written from Stick to Get Shorty, skipping anything set in historic times or outside the US. Not that they’re bad – it’s just that Leonard is at his most appealing in modern Detroit or Florida settings.

If you’re not a reader of crime but are interested in the craft of writing, you should try to read at least one Elmore Leonard book. Get Shorty could be the easiest to like, but I find the inexplicably little-known Touch hardest to forget.