The Terra-Cotta Dog (2003) is the second in the Inspector Montalbano Mystery series by Andrea Camilleri (1925 - ). Il Cane di Terracotta (1996) is the Italian title. The events unfold around the fictional town of Vigàta in Sicily in the fictional province of Montelusa. Salvo Montalbano, a police inspector (commissario di polizia), investigates a few contemporary crimes and one fifty-year old crime. It is the latter that occupies Montalbano for the bulk of the book. The inspector is obsessed with reconstructing the last days of two young lovers during 1943, the year of the Allied landing in Sicily. The titular terra-cotta dog guards the couple in their death. As the circumstances of their death are unraveled by Montalbano we learn that the seven sleepers story is involved.

The Terra-Cotta Dog follows the pattern of a quick moving plot line, lucky breaks, and a tough but lovable detective who may stretch the truth from time to time to make sure justice ultimately prevails. Montalbano occupies himself with understanding the truth of an event or action even when his colleagues and friends have moved on. In The Terra-Cotta Dog Montalbano works to put his mind at rest as to what happened to the two young lovers; current investigations almost bore him. In The Shape of Water Montalbano does much the same in that he does not accept what looked like a stock answer to a death.