Back to Bologna

July 24, 2006
In Gold Dagger–winner Dibdin's fine 10th Aurelio Zen mystery (after 2004's Mesuda
), the neurotic ace detective investigates the murder of Bologna millionaire entrepreneur Lorenzo Curti, who was found in his Audi impaled on a Parmesan cheese knife. Curti was not only the owner of Bologna's immensely popular football club but also part of a shady dairy conglomerate suspected of tax evasion. Meanwhile, bumbling PI Tony Speranza checks on the activities of Vincenzo Amadori, a high-flying socialite and soccer fan, whose prominent parents fret about his off-hours activities. In a comical subplot, Amadori's roommate, Rodolfo, a semiotics student, feuds with Edgardo Ugo ("Professor Ego" to his students), who's embroiled in a public cook-off contest with "Lo Chef," the star of a TV food show. This lively escapade casts modern Italy's many social and political problems in an amusing but realistic light.

September 1, 2006
Dibdin's Aurelio Zen, the ever-cynical, brooding Italian investigator, continues his peregrinations about the country, this time landing in Bologna to oversee a peculiar murder case: the much-hated owner of the local soccer team has been killed, found with a Parmesan knife in his chest. As usual, Zen intends to leave the investigating to the locals--his real reason for coming to Bologna was to avoid his lover and their disintegrating relationship--but, inevitably, he finds himself drawn into the case, which spirals out from the initial murder to encompass an absurd rivalry between a TV chef and an egomaniacal semiotics professor. Dibdin's recent fondness for black comedy is again evident here, as he plays a gang of lager-lout football fans against the follies of academia, the stage-managed world of TV cooking, and Zen's own melancholy, which somehow reflects the larger malaise of Italian culture. This isn't the dark neo-noir with which the Zen series helped redefine European crime fiction (e.g., " Blood Rain," 2002), but it's a plenty tasty blend of tragedy and comedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)