Cosi Fan Tutti: Amazon.ca: Michael Dibdin: Books

Product Description

From Amazon

The career of Italian policeman Auerlio Zen has certainly had its operatic ups and downs: as a nasty colleague points out, "In Milan, you wrongfully arrest a man for the Tondelli murder, and 20 years later he tries to kill you after his release from prison. In Rome, you single-handedly 'solve' the Moro kidnapping, unfortunately too late to save the victim." So it's fitting that Michael Dibdin has used a real comic opera by Mozart and Lorenzo Daponte as the frame for his latest Zen outing. A Northern fish in Naples's polluted waters, Venetian-born Zen seems to have found the perfect job to make himself invisible, as head of the harbor police. But several tangled plots--including one that deftly turns the Daponte stew of unsuitable suitors and fake Albanians on its head--conspire to bring Auerlio into the spotlight one more time. Two of Dibdin's best Zen encounters, Ratking and Dead Lagoon, are available in paperback. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Assigned to Naples, policeman Aurelio Zen takes time to assist a local wealthy widow: he refuses to let her daughters marry their supposedly Mafia-connected fiances. Soon involved in a case of murder and mistaken for Mafia himself, Zen plays out Dibdin's (Dark Spector, LJ 12/95) version of a darkly comic opera.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Love the Zen, not the farce., Aug 2 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Cosi Fan Tutti: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Paperback)

Dibdin excels (usually) when Zen is the focus of his intricate and interesting plots. Unfortunately, he only carried me so far this time. Yes, it is a farce with great promise -- and Dibdin plays very well with the original Cosi fan tutte -- but in my humble opinion, he copped out in the last two chapters. The surreal resolution of the intricate set-up just didn't work for me, in part because his stylistic choice of the self-consciously ironic narrator did not produce a compelling description of the action and resolution of the plot. It was like seeing a play that should have been funny, but was poorly directed.

With all of that being said, I of course went out and got the rest of the Zen books -- even when Dibdin fails, the results are better than most other stories out there!

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5.0 out of 5 stars Aurelio Zen is on a par with the best mystery characters, July 16 2001

By

Georgiana Goodwin (Lyme, CT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cosi Fan Tutti: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Paperback)

Michael Dibdin's character Aurelio Zen is complex, richly drawn and utterly sympathetic. In each Zen mystery the reader gets both a tour of a specific part of Italy, and a dose of office politics not to be believed. And this is in addition to a wonderful crime story. There is never a clear line between good and evil, and the outcomes are never simple. Readers who like Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Robert Van Gulick and Elmore Leonard should love Michael Dibdin.

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4.0 out of 5 stars An Italian Sit-com, complete with murder but no laugh track, Mar 5 2001

By

Dom Miliano (Denville, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cosi Fan Tutti: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Paperback)

Dibdin takes a holiday of sorts and writes a comic opera set in Naples (today we could call this a sit-com). You have to really pay attention with Dibdin, but never more so than with this installment in the A. Zen sagas. We find our hero indolent in this southern port town stalked by love, murder, video games and incest. Dibdin takes us on a merry chase and somehow manages to bring it all together in the final (long) chapter. New comers to the Zen mysteries should not start with this book (try the Dead Lagoon) but long time fans will be caught up by the third page. You should read the chapter title translations to get the jokes as they are played out. All in all, a real hoot that captures the atmosphere of Naples today.

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Its about what you are not thinking
Da Ponte wrote a libretto for the opera the composer called "The School For Lovers". Michael Dibdin titles each chapter with a title from the libretto in Italian, and in the... Read more

Published on Aug 13 2000 by taking a rest

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average mystery
If you're expecting your traditional whodunit, this ain't it. Dibdin is definitely not a formula writer and it's impossible to know exactly what to expect when Aurelio Zen is... Read more

Published on Aug 6 2000 by NC