|
Aurelio Zen
Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), England. The son of a physicist, he was brought up from the age of seven in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, where he attended the Friends' School and was taught by James Simmons. He graduated with a degree in English from Sussex University, and then went to study for a Master's degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Career After publishing his first novel, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, he lived for four years in Italy, teaching at the university in Perugia. Dibdin is best known for his Aurelio Zen mysteries, set in Italy. The first of these, '' Ratking'', won the Gold Dagger award of 1988. This series of detective novels provide a penetrating insight into the less visible aspects of Italian societ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. Most crime drama focuses on criminal investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and Mystery fiction, mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction and science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has several subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hardboiled, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. History Proto-science and crime fictions have been composed across history, and in this category can be placed texts as varied as the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia, the Mahabharata from History of India, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-hero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero or two words anti hero) or anti-heroine is a character in a narrative (in literature, film, TV, etc.) who may lack some conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that most of the audience considers morally correct, their reasons for doing so may not align with the audience's morality. ''Antihero'' is a literary term that can be understood as standing in opposition to the traditional hero, i.e., one with high social status, well-liked by the general populace. Past the surface, scholars have additional requirements for the antihero. The " Racinian" antihero is defined by three factors. The first is that the antihero is doomed to fail before their adventure begins. The second constitutes the blame of that failure on everyone but themselves. Thirdly, they offer a critique of social morals and reality. To other scholars, an antihero is inherently a hero f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dying Of The Light (1993 Novel)
''The Dying of the Light'' is a 1993 murder mystery novel by Michael Dibdin Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now ... set in a nursing home. References External links * http://www.randomhouse.com/book/40367/the-dying-of-the-light-by-michael-dibdin 1993 British novels British crime novels Faber & Faber books {{1990s-crime-novel-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
''The Last Sherlock Holmes Story'' is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche novel by Michael Dibdin. The novel is an account of Holmes's attempt to solve the Jack the Ripper murders. Plot In Victorian-era London, noted detective Sherlock Holmes attempts to solve the murder of prostitutes by the serial killer Jack the Ripper. He suspects the Ripper to be his nemesis, James Moriarty. In a twist ending, it is revealed that Holmes himself invented the character of Moriarty due to insanity and was himself committing the crimes. There is also an ambiguity to the revelation as a despairing Holmes tries to explain to his companion John Watson that Moriarty has fooled Watson and framed Holmes. review at goodreads See also *'' |
End Games
''End Games'' is a 2007 novel by Michael Dibdin. It is the 11th and last entry in the Aurelio Zen series. Plot Police detective Aurelio Zen is posted to remote Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ..., at the toe of the Italian boot. Beneath the surface of a tight-knit, traditional community, he discovers that violent forces are at work. There has been a brutal murder and Zen is determined to find a way to penetrate the code of silence, to uncover the truth, but his assignment is complicated by another secret which has drawn strangers from the other side of the world - a hunt for ancient buried treasure, launched by a single-minded player with millions to spend pursuing his bizarre and deadly obsession. References 2007 British novels Novels by Michael ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back To Bologna
''Back to Bologna'' is a 2005 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the tenth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now ... series. Plot Zen, an Italian police detective, is on sick leave after a stomach operation and is feeling a shadow of himself. His relationship with his partner, Gemma, is also not going well. She is about to leave for Bologna to meet her son who has something important to tell her. Meanwhile, Zen is recalled to duty and is sent to be the liaison officer for a high-profile murder investigation - in Bologna – where the local football team owner has been shot, as well as stabbed with a Parmesan knife. Whilst in Bologna, Gemma manages to get tickets to watch a live cook-off between local academic celebrity Edgardo Ugo and sing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medusa (Dibdin Novel)
''Medusa'' is a 2003 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the ninth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now ... series about an Italian police detective. Plot When a group of Austrian cavers exploring in the Italian Alps comes across human remains at the bottom of a deep shaft, everyone assumes the death was accidental. But then the body is removed from the morgue and the Defence Ministry puts a news blackout on the case. Smelling a rat, and seeing an opportunity to embarrass their political rivals in the run-up to a cabinet change, the Ministry of the Interior puts Aurelio Zen onto the case. The search for the truth leads him into the turbulent political history of Italy during the seventies and also into obscure corners of modern-day affluent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
And Then You Die (novel)
''And Then You Die'' is a 2002 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the eighth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now ... series. Plot Aurelio Zen is back, but nobody's supposed to know it...After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, Zen is lying low under a false name at a beach resort on the Tuscan coast, waiting to testify in an imminent high profile Mafia trial. He has clear instructions: to sit back and enjoy the classic Italian beach holiday. But Zen is getting restless, despite a developing romance with a mysterious and alluring occupant of a nearby sunbed, as an alarming number of people seem to be dropping dead around him. Abruptly, the pleasant monotony of beach life is cut short as the word comes and he finds h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blood Rain (novel)
''Blood Rain'' is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the seventh in the Aurelio Zen series. It was published in 1999 by Faber & Faber. In it Zen, an Italian police detective, is pitted against the Sicilian Mafia and at the end is the subject of a bombing attack for political reasons. Plot Aurelio Zen gets a posting to Sicily, where he is asked to report to Rome on the work of the Direzione Investagitiva AntiMafia (DIA). Carla, his adopted daughter is there too, setting up police computers, and discovers that someone has a backdoor into the data there. She is also enjoying a flirtation with Corinna Nunziatella, an elaborately guarded woman magistrate who is also investigating the Mafia. Before this can proceed far, they are ambushed on a mountain road and their car is bombed. Zen has meanwhile been called back to Rome by the news of his mother's approaching death. This, coupled to news of Carla's death, temporarily puts him out of action, and when he returns to his headquarters in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Long Finish
''A Long Finish'' is a 1998 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the sixth entry in the Aurelio Zen Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Early life Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now ... series. Synopsis After his adventures under sun-drenched Neapolitan skies in ''Cosi Fan Tutti'', Italian police detective Aurelio Zen finds himself reluctantly back in Rome, sneezing in the damp wine cellar of a retired but still powerful and connected mover and shaker. Strings are pulled and he is given another unorthodox assignment: find evidence that clears the jailed scion of an important wine-growing family, who is accused of brutal murder, in time to harvest what is anticipated to be a great vintage. Zen is confronted with the closed ranks and closed mouths of a small, remote rural town, where everyone knows the secrets of every ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosi Fan Tutti
''Cosi Fan Tutti'' is a novel by Michael Dibdin published by Faber and Faber in 1996. The fifth in his Aurelio Zen series, it is set in Naples. One strand of the plot plays on the storyline of the Mozart comic opera ''Così fan tutte''; in addition, the chapter titles are all taken from the Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto for that opera. Plot At odds with his superiors again, Italian police detective Zen has asked for a transfer and thinks he has found himself a backwater sinecure in Naples. In return for a quiet life with pastries and a cappuccino on his desk every morning, he is prepared to tolerate all manner of scams, not the least of which is a brothel on the top floor of the harbour police station of which he is nominally in command. Though the recent “Clean Hands” agitation has brought down institutionalized political corruption elsewhere in Italy, it appears to be making little difference in Naples - until, that is, the slogan ''Strade Pullite'' (clean streets) begins ap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dead Lagoon
''Dead Lagoon'' is a 1994 novel by Michael Dibdin and is the fourth in his Aurelio Zen series. It was published by Faber & Faber in the UK and by Pantheon Books the following year in the US. Plot Moonlighting, Italian police detective Zen had arranged a winter posting to his run-down home city of Venice. This is in order to investigate the disappearance of American millionaire Ivan Durridge (born in Yugoslavia as Durič) on behalf of his American ex-girlfriend. He needs the extra money to set up home with his new girlfriend Tania in Rome with room for his ageing mother. At a time when people in authority all over Italy are being prosecuted for corruption, there is a justified suspicion that Enzo Gavagnin, the head of the local Drugs Squad, is implicated. Zen therefore looks for a different case to explain his presence in Venice. He finds it in the complaints of the half crazy countess Ada Zulian that intruders are breaking into her mouldering palazzo, where his mother used to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
