The Snack Thief (Italian: Il ladro di merendine) is a 1996 novel by Andrea Camilleri, translated into English in 2003 by Stephen Sartarelli.

On the same day the former merchant Aurelio Lapecora is stabbed in a lift and Karima Moussa, a beautiful Tunisian cleaning lady, suddenly disappears.

Thanks to the help of the elderly Aisha, an acquaintance of Karima, Montalbano also finds a savings account owned by the girl with deposited five hundred million lire, a sum too high for a young immigrant who should have had only what she received from her humble work.

The commissioner will join the project of Livia but in the meantime the investigations are complicated by the secret services and the slimy figure of Colonel Lohengrin Pera.

During the investigation, Montalbano receives a letter from a partner of his father's winery informing him that he has long been seriously ill with a tumor and that, although aware of his imminent death, he did not want to let his son know anything about spare him the agony of his suffering.

He cannot hope to defeat them outright, but schemes to achieve his ends by outflanking them.It was first adapted for television by RAI with Luca Zingaretti in the TV series Inspector Montalbano.