A Long Finish: An Aurelio Zen Mystery
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Aurelio Zen of the Rome police has no problem with graft, but he can't stomach bureaucrats, which is why he often finds himself exiled to some distant locale and forced to clean up an unsightly provincial mess. Recently back from Naples (Cosi Fan Tutti [BKL Ap 15 97]), he's now off to Piedmont, and what he finds in that scenic northern region of Italy is just what he found in Naples: an insular community, unfriendly to outsiders, teeming with inbred hostilities and ready to erupt. Zen, of course, is the unwitting agent of that eruption, as feuding families, rival wine growers, and the secretive ways of white truffle harvesters all come together in a grotesquely black comic finale. Zen remains the prototypical post-Maigret European detective, but in these recent forays into distant outposts, the focus has been less on the detective's cynical world-weariness and more on the intricacies of a traditional culture warped by crime. Either way, this series remains a must for Italy buffs and followers of murder continental style. --Bill Ott

Family truths and family lies, as gnarled and hidden as prized local truffles, beat at the heart of the newest case for Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen, last seen in Cosi Fan Tutti (1997). Sent in early fall from Rome to the Piedmont to determine who killed a local vintner in time to save the dead man's vintage, Zen is out of his realm in many ways. He doesn't know the language of wine or wine making, nor is he privy to the generations-old secrets that may lie behind the mutilation and murder of wealthy, unpopular Aldo Vincenzo, whose DOC Barbaresco is the best wine of the region. In jail, but only for a while, is the victim's son, Manlio, who fought loudly with his father the evening before the body was discovered. The subsequent deaths of a local truffle hunter and another vintner provide clues, but Zen's course is twisted, complicated further by his continuing distress over his girlfriend's recent abortion, by anonymous phone calls he receives at odd locations, by unexpected bouts of somnambulism and by the intimations of a local hashish-smoking, harpsichord-playing physician that the policeman harbors a deep-seated psychological problem. Even so, Zen is a masterful investigator, who steps well beyond the bounds of accepted interrogation to ferret out the decades-old relationships of love and deep resentment that surface in the current sequence of murders. The path to his ultimate success in this layered case is, as usual, pure pleasure for Dibdin's readers. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Twice winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, Dibdin returns with popular P.I. Aurelio Zen and a murder that threatens Italy's wine-growing industry. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Just because Manlio Vincenzo is the prime (and only) suspect in the murder of his noted vintner father, thereŽs no reason to keep him locked up when he could be out of jail shepherding the family's harvest to the classic year it seems destined for. At least that's what an influential filmmaker thinks, and since one of the matters he can influence is Aurelio Zen's next posting, Zen agrees to travel from Rome to the Piedmont to look for evidence that will exonerate Manlio. Even though Aldo Vincenzo was murdered in an exceptionally brutal way, and two more killings closely follow Zen's arrival in Alba, no one he encounters acts unduly concerned by the violence. Tobacconist Minot Mandola seems less interested in the murders than in getting his share of the truffles that grow in the region; Zen's fellow-guest Carla Arduini is trying to trace the father she never knew; an anonymous caller alternates between threatening Zen and feeding him cryptic clues to still another mystery; while Gianni and Maurizio Faigano, the Vincenzos' downscale neighbors, delight in baiting Zen by pretending to accept his feeble disguises. Since Dibdin, though he's producing a less sparkling vintage than Così Fan Tutti (1997), is still Dibdin, no one but Zen will be surprised that this relaxed atmosphere is helping conceal some long-buried secrets and a memorably extended game of was-it-this-one-or-that-one.

Aurelio Zen of the Rome police has no problem with graft, but he can't stomach bureaucrats, which is why he often finds himself exiled to some distant locale and forced to clean up an unsightly provincial mess. Recently back from Naples (Cosi Fan Tutti ), he's now off to Piedmont, and what he finds in that scenic northern region of Italy is just what he found in Naples: an insular community, unfriendly to outsiders, teeming with inbred hostilities and ready to erupt. Zen, of course, is the unwitting agent of that eruption, as feuding families, rival wine growers, and the secretive ways of white truffle harvesters all come together in a grotesquely black comic finale. Zen remains the prototypical post-Maigret European detective, but in these recent forays into distant outposts, the focus has been less on the detective's cynical world-weariness and more on the intricacies of a traditional culture warped by crime. Either way, this series remains a must for Italy buffs and followers of murder continental style. ((Reviewed August 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Twice winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, Dibdin returns with popular P.I. Aurelio Zen and a murder that threatens Italy's wine-growing industry. Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information.

Family truths and family lies, as gnarled and hidden as prized local truffles, beat at the heart of the newest case for Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen, last seen in Cosi Fan Tutti (1997). Sent in early fall from Rome to the Piedmont to determine who killed a local vintner in time to save the dead man's vintage, Zen is out of his realm in many ways. He doesn't know the language of wine or wine making, nor is he privy to the generations-old secrets that may lie behind the mutilation and murder of wealthy, unpopular Aldo Vincenzo, whose DOC Barbaresco is the best wine of the region. In jail, but only for a while, is the victim's son, Manlio, who fought loudly with his father the evening before the body was discovered. The subsequent deaths of a local truffle hunter and another vintner provide clues, but Zen's course is twisted, complicated further by his continuing distress over his girlfriend's recent abortion, by anonymous phone calls he receives at odd locations, by unexpected bouts of somnambulism and by the intimations of a local hashish-smoking, harpsichord-playing physician that the policeman harbors a deep-seated psychological problem. Even so, Zen is a masterful investigator, who steps well beyond the bounds of accepted interrogation to ferret out the decades-old relationships of love and deep resentment that surface in the current sequence of murders. The path to his ultimate success in this layered case is, as usual, pure pleasure for Dibdin's readers. (Sept.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews