tight procedural thriller. lovely Italian detail. a good holiday read

I like this series, but like Donna Leon's Guido it seems to get darker and more disillusioned with every book

I really am enjoying this series. Unfortunately I am reading them in reverse order, as I finally looked at the list. But that doesn't seem to matter. This particular book is built around a labyrinth of lies, deceit, and mistaken belief. It is a lovely plot that includes collusion at the Vatican, the ineptitude of the police and the interference of the politcal system. Lovely stuff. Aurelio Zen continues to be a blunderer and a hopeless romantic.
So much fun.

Inspired to read after seeing the Masterpiece Zen series, realized that I read this book many years ago... and the Masterpiece version bears little resemblance to the book. I still enjoy Dibdin's writing, and now picturing Rufus Sewell as Aurelio Zen is added pleasure.

Not that great

There's this joke I know where this driver stops someone and asks for directions, only to be told "Well if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here." I feel the same about the Aurelio Zen series of books. If I had the chance to start the series again, I wouldn't start from here.

The start of the book was very good. Zen is asked to go to the Vatican to investigate a seeming suicide of a jumper from the dome of St. Peter's. The cardinals know people distrust their pronouncements, especially, when it comes notable bankers who helped run their bank (the book is written a little while after Roberto Calvi died, and money and the church bank was the big issue facing the church).

The problem is, as the book goes on, you can guess who the murderer is. He keeps cropping up for no reason I can see, other than reminding people he's there. There aren't many clues, but then there aren't many suspects either, save this shadowy "Cabal" who have been getting up to nefarious wrong doings, according to the deceased.

The other issue I have is it turning into something Benny Hill would write at the end, if he was writing a whodunit. In my mind I was almost hearing that silly Yakety Sax "chase music" he used to use at the end of each episode while Zen chased the bad guys. When that's happening, you know the book/denouement isn't going well.

It just gets sillier and sillier until it seems like a parody of the first two books. There was some interesting stuff about the jurisdictional weirdness between Italy and the Vatican at the beginning, and some cool curia characters, but then, like I said, it gets very silly. Comedy of errors, a goofball fashionista, bizarrely complicated murders, and then a cuh-razy aristocrat with a doll collection... did he steal that from Raj Kapoor's 1973 film Bobby? Which is not to say that I didn't like it. I did. Just not as much as the first two.

I love mystery stories set in exotic locations, but this book left me a little cold. Mr. Dibdin's Rome seems like a maze of traffic, bureaucracy, and corruption.

The mystery starts out with a promising premise, a well-connected member of the aristocracy falls from the dome of St. Peters. Was it suicide or murder? The Vatican, worried about the appearance of impropriety, calls the local authorities to "sign off" on the judgement of suicide. Enter Dottore Aurelio Zen, who is unlucky enough to be on call that night.

Maybe I'm used to American-style mysteries, but it doesn't seem like anyone is competent or cares very much about solving this mystery. They seem more preoccupied with avoiding inconvenience or blame. The mystery goes to places you don't expect, and I was genuinely surprised by the identity of the killer.

One nice touch that I want to mention: SPOILER ALERT!! The book begins and ends with very similar scenes. In the opening scene, a man falls to his death in St. Peter's, the very center of the Christian universe, a temple dedicated to the spiritual side of life. In the last scene, a man falls to his death in the middle of a shopping mall, a "temple" dedicated to commerce and capitalism. Maybe Dibdin was trying to make a statement with this book about the tension between the sacred and the profane that defines modern Rome. Anyway, interesting book, but I'm not sure I want to spend anymore time in Dottore Zen's Rome.