- Paperback
- Publisher: Vintage
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679768548
- ISBN-13: 978-0679768548
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.5 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #334,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Auspicious Start to the Aurelio Zen Series,
By
This review is from: Ratking (Hardcover)
In "Ratking," by Michael Dibdin, Aurelio Zen, a disgraced Venetian police commissioner now assigned to a dreary housekeeping function in Rome, is unexpectedly sent to Perugia to take over the case of a very wealthy man who has been kidnapped and whose family is not cooperating with the police in their attempts to resolve the matter. He is thrown into this tense situation with very little information, and everybody around him either resents him for usurping their roles or has something to hide from him or has a reason to mislead him, but Zen has no choice but to somehow muddle his way through all their machinations. When a family go-between is found dead in the trunk of a car, the stakes become even higher, but the barriers placed in front of Zen still remain, seemingly, insurmountable.... This is the first in a long (11-book) series about this very complex copper, a character I only discovered from a recent BBC series (featuring Rufus Sewell as Zen). I'm glad I did; Dibdin's writing is very evocative, and he takes the time to build the story rather than hastening the reader along. Indeed, I found this novel almost stressful to read because Dibdin conveys Zen's confusion and sense of being a fish out of water so well. I can't wait to read more books in the series; recommended!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slightly Underwhelmed,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ratking (Paperback)
After reading some of the posted reviews for Dibdin's works I couldn't wait to begin reading the first novel in the series. I must confess I was less than thrilled. The plot was engrossing enough, but the writing style left me cold. Dibdin's grammar is inexcusably poor for an English writer (I often wondered where his editor was) and the character of Aurelio Zen seems artifically "tortured", like a poor man's version of Martin Beck. It's an age-old ploy in the detective novel to have one's hero seem superficially bungling, only to have him solve the puzzle in the end. I just didn't feel Dibdin brought anything new to this genre.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
The opening of a great series,
This review is from: Ratking (Paperback)
Michael Dibdin is a genre writer of many styles. He has written stand alone thrillers, The Tryst and Dark Spectre, parodies, The Last Sherlock Homes Story and The Dying of the Light, and one of the great modern detective series - the Aurelio Zen novels. This is the first novel in that series. Critically applauded at the time of original publication (and winner of the British CWA Gold Dagger Award for crime novel of the year) it perhaps deserves reappraisal in the light of the other books in the series.The Zen novels take place around Italy, this in Perugia. Zen is seconded there from Rome, following political pressure being placed on his superiors. The pressure is brought because an important businessman has been kidnapped, and in the many months he has been missing the local police seem to be having trouble finding the kidnappers. Zen's imposition is resented by locals, and his intervention used by members of the businessman's family, and the local prosecutors. In its favour the novel has a strong sense of place, Perugia being well evoked; and wonderful characterisation. Zen is one of the great fictional detectives. He starts here a man on the shelf. Having been sidelined during a kidnapping investigation many years before, he has been out of operative duty for some time. He is not quite as he seems, not wholly corrupt, a man au fait with the politics of the police force. There are many contradictions in his character. Also, Zen is an outsider. He is from Venice, the wrong part of the country for some. Zen's opening scene in the novel says much of his character. As a robbery takes place on a train, he sits by and watches. He is berated by his fellow passengers, then at the next station leaves the train to make some phone calls. The reader is never completely sure where they stand with Zen. The sketchy family background hinted at in this novel is fleshed out in later novels. However, the joy in this novel is the strength of the minor characters. The Miletti family (the kidnapped man's children) and their partners are well drawn. The Marxist prosecutor is a wonderful character. Partly jealous at the Miletti fortune, partly zealous to perform his job well, but never above playing political games. Characterisation is brought out through small actions, minor insults. Sometimes Dibdin tells the reader, rather than showing (e.g. the treatment of Ivy Cook at an early family dinner). These glitches are less pronounced in later novels in the series. The plotting is sound, the novel part puzzle, part atmospheric. It is an enjoyable work. It is in the subsequent novels in the series where plotting is tightened, and characterisation strengthened, together with the increasing familiarity with the principal and his regular support, that Dibdin's strengths as a writer really show. If you enjoyed Ratking try Dibdin's Cabal or Vendetta, or the Dalziel and Pascoe series of novels of Reginald Hill (Particularly Deadheads, Bones and Silence, or A Killing Kindness) or Ian Rankin's Mortal Causes or The Black Book (two Rebus novels).
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