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Amazon.co.uk Review
Michael Dibdin's likeable Italian cop Aurelio Zen has, by his appearance in the new Medusa, had more than enough of the deceit that passes for civil society; this is a new, darker Zen. When the corpse of a young officer who supposedly died in a plane crash 30 years ago turns up in a remote mountain tunnel, the rival agencies of the Italian state gear up to discredit each other over crimes long forgotten. Zen takes the case partly to obey his orders to help stitch up his boss's rivals in the security services, partly because he wants to get a modicum of justice done. This long-ago death is not going to be the last, as Zen and others race around gathering or destroying evidence; the solution to what happened all those years ago turns out to be both poignant and ingenious, and to symbolise just how even the nastier idealisms of the militarist far right can be subverted for quite sordid motives.
Like all of Dibdin's books, part of what makes us care is a vivid sense of what foggy streets smell like, or of the delicate sounds of a near-silent remote country hide-out, and part is Zen, a battered moralist who solves cases and then decides on what might be the right thing to do. --Roz Kaveney
Review
'Among British crime writers, he remains very much the man to beat. No one else can match him for style, for imagination, or for sheer beastliness,' Sunday Telegraph
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Michael Dibdin’s latest Italian mystery featuring Aurelio Zen is superb. This is his 9th in the Zen series and the best since ‘Dead Lagoon’ was published in 1994. In his past Zen thrillers, Dibdin set each novel in a different location in Italy, e.g. Umbria, Sardinia, Venice, Naples, and Sicily, to name a few. Other mystery series writers pick a single location, i.e., Donna Leon sets her Commissario Brunetti series in Venice and Magdalen Nabb’s Marshal Guarnaccia series is Florence-based.
Well, MEDUSA is set in six different regions of Northern Italy. The plot centers around a body, buried for thirty years in a cave in the Dolomites; Zen works out of Rome, but lives in Lucca with his ladyfriend, Gemma from the last book; the main characters were associated with the military in the 1970s and now live in Milan, Verona, Campione (near Lugano) and a rural area near Pesaro in the Marche region. Inspector Zen is one busy guy traveling from place to place to solve this one.
Zen works for the Polizia di Stato under the Interior Ministry, who are always in competition with the Carabinieri under the Defence Ministry. Dibdin does a great job of setting up this adversary situation to its fullest. Zen is trying to solve the mystery while the Carabinieri is trying to bury the facts from becoming public. This novel is very contemporary with many barbs directed toward Silvio Berlusconi and his current government. The plot is fast-moving and intriguing. In this one, Zen is all business and at his best, with his personal life taking a backseat, for a change.
- by Carlo Vennarucci
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series got a bit uneven towards the end but although this book is sandwiched between And Then You Die (Aurelio Zen 08) and Back to Bologna (Aurelio Zen 10) (in my opinion the two weakest books in the series) Medusa is one of the very best of the bunch.
The story is excellent, and certainly more complex and enjoyable than either of the books written either side of it, but what really marks this book out is the quality of the writing. Much of the book takes place in cold dank foggy landscapes and you can almost feel the fog around you as you read.
There are also a number of lines that have stayed with me over the many years since I first read the book - one of my favourites comes from a character who is out in a deserted rural landscape in the middle of the night. He remembers that as a child in the 1950s he would regularly cycle off around the country and if he hadn't got back home before dark he would simply sleep out under a tree and go home in the morning. He reflects that today that if a child hadn't returned by nightfall its parents would have the police out scouring the area looking for it and notes that in his youth "life was hard but safe, today it is soft but fearful."
I would also point out to anyone coming to Dibdin's work as a result of the BBC Zen series should note that Dibdin's Zen is a little more self-serving and ethically ambiguous than Rufus Sewell's. I really enjoyed the TV series but think it is fair to say that they are "based on" Dibdin's books rather than a totally faithful interpretation.
If you are new to the series I would add that, in my view, it didn't really hit its straps until the third book, Cabal (oddly this was the second episode in the TV version but it was the third book). If you wanted to pick out the best bits, rather than read the whole series I'd recommend Cabal (Zen), Dead Lagoon (Aurelio Zen 04), Cosi Fan Tutti (Aurelio Zen 05), A Long Finish (Aurelio Zen 06), Medusa and End Games (Aurelio Zen Mystery). It is worth reading them all but those six are, in my view, the best.
The story is excellent, and certainly more complex and enjoyable than either of the books written either side of it, but what really marks this book out is the quality of the writing. Much of the book takes place in cold dank foggy landscapes and you can almost feel the fog around you as you read.
There are also a number of lines that have stayed with me over the many years since I first read the book - one of my favourites comes from a character who is out in a deserted rural landscape in the middle of the night. He remembers that as a child in the 1950s he would regularly cycle off around the country and if he hadn't got back home before dark he would simply sleep out under a tree and go home in the morning. He reflects that today that if a child hadn't returned by nightfall its parents would have the police out scouring the area looking for it and notes that in his youth "life was hard but safe, today it is soft but fearful."
I would also point out to anyone coming to Dibdin's work as a result of the BBC Zen series should note that Dibdin's Zen is a little more self-serving and ethically ambiguous than Rufus Sewell's. I really enjoyed the TV series but think it is fair to say that they are "based on" Dibdin's books rather than a totally faithful interpretation.
If you are new to the series I would add that, in my view, it didn't really hit its straps until the third book, Cabal (oddly this was the second episode in the TV version but it was the third book). If you wanted to pick out the best bits, rather than read the whole series I'd recommend Cabal (Zen), Dead Lagoon (Aurelio Zen 04), Cosi Fan Tutti (Aurelio Zen 05), A Long Finish (Aurelio Zen 06), Medusa and End Games (Aurelio Zen Mystery). It is worth reading them all but those six are, in my view, the best.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I don't think I would have found the Zen books if they had not been on TV. The stories demand your attention, they are not flimsy quick reads, but the tale is well planned, the working of the Italian police sufficiently explained, altogether a good read
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Zen's Medusa
I have always wondered how Dibdin could have created such a believable character as Zen when he himself is not Italian. Read more
Published 23 days ago by Wladyslaw mejka
Compelling plot
This is the first Zen book I have read and I am impressed. Fast action, a compelling plot and realistic characters. Spoilt a little by the clipped N. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Donald Hughes
Good story shame about the typos
Again a good story and well written, but oh the typos. I am fed up with seeing ¬ in the middle of words. Please someone sort this out.
Published 14 months ago by bookie
Medusa - a novel to get in your hair
I have only recently started reading Michael Dibden's Aurelio Zen novels, following on from the recent TV treatments starring Rufus Sewell. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Ray Kay
Passable.
This book was a light way to pass a few hours. But I'm finding the Zen stories a little far-fetched and the characterisation somewhat lacking. Read more
Published 14 months ago by moby-dick
Medusa - Michael Dibdin
Nearly at the end of this series of detective stories, at last a tale that is kind to our hero, letting him have a contented love life, a successful and just end to his... Read more
Published 14 months ago by G. Stewart
A zen masterpiece
I was introduced to Aurelio Zen in the television series and since then have read some of the books . This one is right up to the usual standard and is difficult to put down.
Published 15 months ago by Wally
ace Italian detectives
Haven't finished this book yet and is one of the sort you don't want to end-am really enjoying it-love Italian detective novels.Leon-Camilleri and Dibdin.Jan Stevenson
Published 23 months ago by Mrs. Janet A. Stevenson
Aurelio Zen's new case
This case takes inspector Aurelio Zen to the Dolomites to the site where a body has been found in an abandoned military tunnel. Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2004 by HORAK
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