• Book Reviews
  • Slideshow Reviews
  • About Silash
  • Lessons from Fiction
  • Twitter Pics
  • Contact
  • Join Mailing List
Silash Ruparell

Michael Dibdin: Vendetta (1990)

3/2/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
La Costa Smeralda, Sardegna
Michael Dibdin: Vendetta (1990)

My one liner:
Classic Murder Mystery, Italian Giallo style. The Aurelio Zen series of murder-mysteries was serialised by the BBC last year.Vendetta is a fun read. Takes place in Sardegna.

 The late Michael Dibdin created the Aurelio Zen detective stories in the 1980s and 1990s.  Zen, the Rome-based crime-solver is the epitome of the under-paid, under-resourced, over-worked middle-aged Italian crime solver battling against the departmental bureaucratic stupor of the Criminalpol.  And of course, his mother lives with him.
 
Vendetta is the second in the series and most of the action takes place in the beautiful, enigmatic, hostile countryside of Sardegna. Italophiles will enjoy.

 For members of the international elite to establish a retreat in Sardegna, “..the
only requirement was money, and lots of it.  As founder and owner of a construction company... there was no question that Oscar Burolo satisfied that requirement.  But instead of meekly buying his way into the Costa [Smeralda] like everyone else, he did something unheard-of, something so bizarre and outlandish that some people claimed afterwards that they always thought it was ill-omened from the start.  For his Sardinian retreat, Oscar chose an abandoned farmhouse half-way down the island’s almost uninhabited eastern coast, and not even on the sea, for God’s sake, but several kilometres inland !
”
 
The fortress he constructs there is impenetrable, yet one evening he is brutally murdered, together with his wife and dinner party guests. “It had taken less than twenty seconds to turn the room into an abattoir. Fifteen seconds later, the caretaker would appear, having run from the two room service flat where he and his wife were watching a variety show on television.” No, the butler didn’t do it, but many other people had enough of grudge against Burolo, to exact such a vendetta.

 As ever in Italy, political considerations are never far way. In this case onorevole (MP) and fixer Favelloni was also at the dinner party but had managed to leave with his wife prior to the killings. The investigating magistrate and the weight of public opinion thinks that he did it, albeit that the evidence is weak and circumstantial. Favelloni’s political allies put the requisite pressure on Zen’s superiors to have him sent to Sardegna to gather the requisite evidence to show that Favelloni is innocent.  Who actually did it is not of particular concern, though in true Italian style it would be nice if someone else could be framed to add weight to the acquittal.

There are some nice little touches in the book.  I don't know if the author meant it, but a particularly cute one is the irate Zen explaining to the obstructive clerk in the department archives that surname is spelt Zen, not Zeno.  Surely the clerk has appreciated that he has swapped the word symbolising Mahayana Buddhism for the name of the founder of the philosophy of Stoicism !

 Back in the story,  also lurking in the  background is communist agitator-turned gangster Vasco Spadola, just released from jail, having been put away twenty years ago by Zen.  And he has his own vendetta to execute.

We follow Zen’s adventure into Sargedna’s hostile terrain (the people of this
island are not known for sharing their dark internal secrets) where slowly and
surely, by both luck and design, he exceeds his remit and closes in on what actually happened.

Here is wikipedia link to the book.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Silash Ruparell

    Reviews of books that I read in my spare time.  Enjoy.

    Archives

    November 2015
     - Ferdinand von Schirach: Crime & Guilt (2012) 

    October 2015
    - Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi: The Systems View of Life - A Unifying Vision (2014)

    September 2015
     - Danny King: School for Scumbags (2012)

    August 2015 
    - Erich Maria Remarque: Arch of Triumph (1945)

    July 2015
     - W. Somerset Maugham - The Painted Veil

    June 2015
     - John Julius Norwich: Byzantium, The Early Centuries (1988)

    May 2015
     - Anthony Price: Other Paths to Glory (1975)

    April 2015
    - Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley: The Emotional Life of Your Brain (2012)

    February 2015
    - Charles Neider (Ed): The Autobiography of Mark Twain

    January 2015
    - Paul Torday: The Girl on the Landing (2009)

    November 2014
    - David Eagleman: Sum - Forty Tales of the Afterlife (2009)

    August 2014
    - Simon Winchester: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)

    May 2014
    - Steven Strange & Jack Zupko (Eds): Stoicism - Traditions and Tranformations (2004)

    March 2014
      - Michael Dibdin: Vendetta (1990)

    January 2014
     - Matt Sinclair (Ed): The Fall - Tales from the Apocalypse (2012)

    September 2013
     - Edward Jay Epstein: Have you ever tried to sell a Diamond ? (And other
    investigations of the diamond trade) (2011)


    August 2013
     - Lessons from Fiction Part 3: The role of institutions in alleviating the poverty trap 

    April 2013
    - Emile Zola: L’Assommoir (The Drinking Den) 1877, Translation by Robin Buss (2004)

    March 2013
    - Margaret Atwood:Oryx & Crake  (2003)

    February 2013
     - Paul Auster: Sunset Park (2010)

    January 2013
     - Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea (1951)

    December 2012
     - Lessons from Fiction Part 2 - How Societies adapt to Disruptive Change

    November 2012
     - James Barr: A Line in the Sand (2011). And a nod to "Information is Beautiful"

    October 2012
     - Voltaire (1749 translation): Zadig or the Book of Fate (1747)

    September 2012
     - Leigh Skene: The Impoverishment of Nations (2009)

    August 2012
     - Steven Roger Fischer: A History of Language (1999)

    July 2012
     - John Dickson Carr: He Who Whispers (1946)

    June 2012
     - Matthew May: The Shibumi Strategy (2011)
     - Trevanian: Shibumi (1979)

    May 2012
     - Lessons from Fiction: Part 1 - A beginner's guide to convicting an innocent man

    April 2012
     - H. Woody Brock: American Gridlock (Why the Right and Left are Both Wrong, Commonsense 101 Solutions for the Economic Crises) (2012)
    March 2012
      - Jane Jensen: Dante's Equation (2003)
    February 2012
    - Amartya Sen: The Idea of Justice (2009)
    January 2012
    - Ian Morris: Why the West Rules...For Now (2010)

    Categories

    All
    Actus Reus
    Adam Smith
    Afterlife
    Alcohol
    Amartya Sen
    American Literature
    Anthony Price
    Apocalypse
    Attila The Hun
    Aurelio Zen
    Autobiography
    Babylonia
    Balfour Declaration
    Basque Country
    Brad Pitt
    Brain
    Buddhism
    Byzantine Empire
    Calouste Gulbenkian
    Carl Gustav Jung
    Cartel
    Charlemagne
    Charles Darwin
    China
    Cholera
    Cicero
    Constantine The Great
    Constantinople
    Criminal Law
    Cuba
    Dalai Lama
    Danny King
    David Eagleman
    David Lloyd-George
    David Mccandless
    De Beers
    Decimation
    Descartes
    Destiny
    Detective
    Dialogue Of The Deaf
    Diamonds
    Donation Of Constantine
    Dr David Audley
    Dr Gideon Fell
    Economics
    Ecosystems
    Edward J Epstein
    Emile Zola
    Energy
    Epictetus
    Erich Maria Remarque
    Ernest Hemingway
    Fat Boy
    Fate
    Ferdinand Von Schirach
    Fiction
    Financial Crisis
    Fiscal Deficit
    Fishing
    Flanders
    Fractal Mathematics
    François-Marie Arouet
    Franz Bopp
    Freeman Dyson
    French Literature
    Fritjoft Capra
    Gafin Principle
    Gaia Theory
    Game Of Go
    Genomics
    Geo Politics
    Geo-politics
    German Literature
    Giallo
    Great Wyrley
    Happiness
    Havana
    Healthcare
    Herbert Henry Asquith
    Hindenburg Line
    History
    Holistics
    Huckleberry Finn
    Huguenot
    Humility
    H. Woody Brock
    Ian Morris
    Identity
    Infographics
    Information Is Beautiful
    International Relations
    International Space Station
    Investment
    Iraq
    Isaac Newton
    Israel
    Jack Zupko
    James Barr
    Jane Jensen
    Japan
    Japanese Aesthetics
    Jean De La Bruyère
    Joe Dimaggio
    John Dickson Carr
    John Julius Norwich
    John Maynard Keynes
    John Rawls
    Joseph Needham
    Julian Barnes
    Julian The Apostate
    Justice
    Kabbalah
    Karl Marx
    Kenneth Arrow
    King Feisal 1st
    Language
    Lawrence Becker
    Lebanon
    Leigh Skene
    Leverage
    Life Outcomes
    Linguistics
    Locked Room Mystery
    London
    Margaret Atwood
    Mark Twain
    Martha Nussbaum
    Martial Arts
    Matthew May
    Matt Sinclair
    Max Brooks
    Meditation
    Mens Rea
    Mesopotamia
    Michael Arditti
    Michael Dibdin
    Middle East
    Migration
    Miscarriage Of Justice
    Moliere
    Mordecai Kurz
    Mother Company
    Mr Five Percent
    Murder
    National Patrimony
    Natural Resources
    Neuroscience
    New York
    Non Fiction
    Non-Fiction
    Oil And Energy
    Oprah Winfrey
    Palestine
    Parcae
    Paris
    Parsi
    Paul Auster
    Paul Torday
    Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Persia
    Philippines
    Philosophy
    Pia De' Tolomei
    Pier Luigi Luisi
    Plato
    Pont De L'Alma
    Population
    Poverty
    Proto Indo-European
    Psychology
    Purgatorio
    Qalys
    Quantitative Easing
    Quantum Mechanics
    Recession
    Religion
    Richard Davidson
    Richard Easterlin
    Rodney William Whittaker
    Roman Empire
    Sanskrit
    Sardegna
    Satellites
    Science
    Science Fiction
    Sharon Begley
    Shibumi
    Short Stories
    Silash Ruparell
    Simon Winchester
    Sin
    Snooker; Pool; & Billiards
    Social Realisation
    Sociology
    Socrates
    Spy Novel
    Steven Roger Fischer
    Steven Strange
    Stoicism
    Supernatural
    Sykes-Picot Agreement
    Syria
    Systems View
    Terrorism
    The Somme
    Thomas Malthus
    Thriller
    Trevanian
    Vampires
    Voltaire
    Water
    What Can We Learn From Fiction
    Winston Churchill
    World War I
    World War II
    W. Somerset Maugham
    Yin And Yang
    Zionism
    Zombie Banks
    Zombies

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.