Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Aurelio Zen Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Michael Dibdin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2000 | Series: Aurelio Zen Mysteries

Despite his best efforts to please everyone and keep out of trouble, the veteran Italian Criminalpol officer Aurelio Zen has made more enemies than friends over the years. Now it's payoff time. After his last case, amid the gentle hills and lush vineyards of Piedmont, Zen finally receives the order he has been dreading all his professional life: his next posting is to Sicily, heart of the Mafia's power.

The gruesome discovery of an unidentified, decomposed corpse sealed in a railway wagon on a deserted part of the island marks the beginning of Zen's most difficult and dangerous case. And indeed, it soon turns out that he will need all his cunning and skill to survive in a world where unwritten rules are enforced with ruthless violence, where one false step can prove fatal, and where the truth must be paid for in blood.

Set against the backdrop of the three-thousand-year-old city of Catania, in the shadow of the smoldering volcano of Etna, Blood Rain reveals Aurelio Zen at his most desperate and driven, and Michael Dibdin's writing at its most darkly atmospheric, galvanizing best.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, May 2000: Dibdin's six Aurelio Zen novels (beginning with Ratking, which won the 1988 Golden Dagger Award) are as vividly Italian as if this English writer had never strayed far from the Via Veneto, despite the fact that he has, in fact, been expatriated for several years now to the Pacific Northwest. His hero, a battle-weary but still morally engaged Roman police investigator, is one of the more elegantly vulnerable characters in the genre, a figure who resembles Nicolas Freeling's Inspector Van der Valk in his ability to bring triumph to situations and yet never have them seem like victories. Moreover, like Van der Valk, Zen's greatest talent seems to be for making new enemies among his colleagues.

In Blood Rain, Zen has been exiled to Sicily under the guise of acting as a sort of watchdog, observing a recently reestablished anti-Mafia taskforce. By the nature of the locale--Sicily makes its own rules--the fact that the work of this commission will inevitably be compromised seems clear. But where the cracks in the system will reveal themselves is harder to figure out until, of course, it's too late. Distracted by his dying mother back in Rome and by the island's perverse feuds and even stranger loyalties, and paying not quite enough attention to the professional travails of his beautiful adopted daughter, Carla, a computer specialist, Zen travels his usual idiosyncratic route to a crime's resolution. As always, he is most intrigued by the ambiguities of the situation--and is doomed to be the sacrificial scapegoat.

Dibdin seems to be incapable of writing a bad book, and the Zen novels are his best work. Blood Rain causes the reader to gasp frequently in genuine surprise, as well as in admiration for the way Dibdin accomplishes his effects. The intensity of these sensations is something to be grateful for, since most books these days, even with their ability to shock, make us feel so little. --Otto Penzler

From Booklist

Dibdin's early Aurelio Zen novels (Ratking, Vendetta, Cabal, Dead Lagoon) established the Rome policeman as perhaps the quintessential world-weary European cop: trapped in a corrupt organization, willing to ride with it, but unable to keep himself from antagonizing the bureaucrats around him. What these books deliver is a uniquely hard-edged, no-holds-barred cynicism--light years from the squishy idealism lurking beneath the hard-boiled exteriors of most American detectives. Then the tone of the series changed dramatically, as Dibdin sent Zen on road trips, first to Naples (Cosi Fan Tutti) and then to Piedmont (A Long Finish). In these provincial settings, Zen took on an almost-comic persona; the hard edge was still detectable but only beneath a veneer of opera buffa. This time Dibdin is on the road again, posted to Sicily, but in the heart of organized crime the comic tone disappears, and the world-weary cynicism returns with a vengeance. Zen's nominal assignment, spying on the State Police's anti-Mafia operation for the rival Interior Ministry, is another example of corruption at work, and soon enough, he blunders into a lethal crossfire of power-hungry politicians, bureaucrats, and crime bosses. When his mother dies a suspicious death in Rome, and the woman he considers his daughter is killed in Sicily, Zen must ask himself a familiar question: Will finding the truth only make matters worse? Dibdin has devised all sorts of ironic approaches to this fundamental question, but his answers always amount to yes and no. This time the ambiguity takes on a new and even darker twist, as we are left to ponder whether the surprise ending transforms Zen's last words ("At least we're alive") into the bitterest of ironies. Crime fiction at its multifaceted best. Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (March 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375409157
• ISBN-13: 978-0375409158
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three ways to find a great new Author, July 12, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Aurelio Zen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Recently I have found a series of new writers that were unknown to me. I understand the number of books offered on a given day is enormous, but those worth the time it takes to read them are comparatively few.

Some book jackets compare one Author to another, as was the case here. I had never heard of Mr. Dibdin or this series of Aurelio Zen mysteries, and if you haven't either, something special by a gifted Author awaits your attention.

If you enjoyed the late Mario Puzzo's Sicily, this particular installment, "Blood Rain", is for you. Very little is as it appears the first, second, or third time you read it during this story. Mr. Dibdin has the ability to sustain the uncertainty of the tale's direction and outcome until you literally are at the final page. What you feel you have learned even at that point is still open to question. None of this is done so as to be cliché, no surprise lurks around a corner. One of the skills Mr. Dibdin is so good at is knocking you off your chair when there is absolutely no reason to expect it. The brilliant part is, even though he surprises you, he has laid the basis for his moment, and still you really are stunned. I know it sounds trite, but you will not see the event coming. You may find yourself flipping back a few pages thinking you missed a clue, but don't bother looking; you missed nothing, no pages stuck together. The Author manipulates his readers with subtlety and perhaps a bit of guile.

One other element I enjoyed was the length. The book can be comfortably read in a sitting for it is only as long as it needs to be. Mr. Dibdin does not feel the need to produce 600 pages when 272 will do. He needed 272, no more or less, and you are rewarded for it.

The other 2 ways to find these new writers, you can follow the links of what others have bought on Amazon, you will turn up new Authors faster than you may think. The other alternative is to get down on the floor of a bookstore, your face nearly on the carpet. There, if you are lucky you will find these wonderful books. In more ways than one they are holding up many "marquee authors" that are on the top shelves, as foundations are the strength of any sound structure. On the top shelf does not mean top shelf quality. I don't mean to be pretentious; it is just that I am tired of plowing through, clicking through, around and around the latest book with an initial run of millions of copies, to find someone or something new.

Read Mr. Dibdin you will not be disappointed.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner, March 28, 2000

By 

S. Wheeler (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Aurelio Zen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I discovered Michael Dibdin only recently and have eagerly devoured all his books. I especially like the Aurelio Zens. These books are so much more than mysteries--they're about politics, culture, human nature, and that student of same, Zen himself. This latest does not disappoint. From Rome, to Venice, to Naples, Zen has worried about being sent to Sicily. Once he gets there, his worst fears are confirmed. Zen tries to stay out of the way, but fate has other things in mind for him.

The mood and tone in Blood Rain is intense, personal and sad. Some of the scenes are distinctly dreamlike, a quality that persists right to the end.

An excellent read.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cosi e la Vita in Italia, May 22, 2000

By 

mrpennysworth "mrpennysworth" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Aurelio Zen Mysteries) (Hardcover)

"Blood Rain" is the seventh in Michael Dibdin's incredibly literate Aurelio Zen series (following "Ratking", "Cabal", "Vendetta", "Dead Lagoon", "Cosi Fan Tutti" and "A Long Finish"). Dibdin, an Englishman transplanted to Seattle, has obviously lived in Italy (which makes him an Anglo-Seatitalian, I suppose). Through the genre of detective novels, he is giving us a virtual travelogue of the "spirit" of Italy. In Venice ("Dead Lagoon"), it was a novel of ghosts and of psyches haunted by history. In Naples ("Cosi Fan Tutti"), it was opera buffa. In Piedmont ("A Long Finish"), it was a novel of custom and tradition. "Cabal" split between the spiritual (the Vatican) and the secular (Milan). Now "Blood Rain" takes us to Sicily where Zen encounters conundrums, elaborate and secretive games played out to the death, with no possible solution save the irony of time and circumstance. Here, Dibdin juxtapositions the death of Zen's mother, whom Zen loves, with the death of his daughter, whom he barely knows but is blood, with the death of a stranger, whom he must investigate in the name of justice. Zen tries to make sense of these by threading them into his investigation, but in the end they are simply too cloaked in secrets, be they political, Mafia or metaphysical. Through all of these novels, Aurelio Zen is the quintessential Italiano, going with the flow, nonchalant and unchagrined, solving mystery after mystery with seemingly no effort at all. Each one of these novels is an invitation to sip a Campari by a fountain on some piazza in some village or town and to watch the comings and goings of those utterly fascinating Italians. I have traveled there many times, and Dibdin transports me back with each new novel. This is a series well worth hopping aboard.