A Long Finish [Paperback]

Michael Dibdin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard | Publication Date: February 29, 2000

From the award-winning author of Ratking and Dead Lagoon comes a delicious new Aurelio Zen mystery in which wine and truffles figure as prominently as greed and vengence.

When the son of a Piedmontese wine-making family is jailed for killing his father, Aurelio Zen is ordered to secure his release. The reason: A certain well-connected wine connoisseur wants to make sure that this year's vintage goes to harvest.

In the hill town of Alba, Zen finds himself in the midst of a traditional culture in which family and soil are inextricablt linked, bombarded with gossip, and stalked by a mysterious telephone caller with tantalizing clues to his past. He also discovers that certain meals may really be to die for. A Long Finish is Michael Dibdin at his most elegant and surprising.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Fresh from the successful investigation of a series of crimes in Naples, that admirably devious and dour Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen returns to his office in Rome to discover that a new set of bureaucrats is in power--with plans to punish him for his success by sending to him Sicily to fight the Mafia. Fate, in the form of a powerful film director, offers a way out: Zen is to go instead to Piedmont, where the murder of a noted winemaker--apparently by his son and heir--threatens the future of one of the film director's favorite vintages. Even though Zen is a Venetian by birth and drinks "fruity, fresh vino sfuso from the Friuli intended to be consumed within the year" as the director sarcastically notes, he can still see how important the case can be to his future--especially if it keeps him away from deadly Sicily. Not only wine but also truffles are involved in a growing series of murders in the area around Alba, and Michael Dibdin (an English writer who lives in Seattle but must spend lots of time in Italy) once again manages to capture the heart, soul, and stomach of the region. Zen, whose personal life is gradually revealed and expanded in each book in the series, finds out several surprising things about being a father in this one. Previous Zen encounters: Cosi Fan Tutti, Dead Lagoon, Ratking, Vendetta. --Dick Adler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Family truths and family lies, as gnarled and hidden as prized local truffles, beat at the heart of the newest case for Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen, last seen in Cosi Fan Tutti (1997). Sent in early fall from Rome to the Piedmont to determine who killed a local vintner in time to save the dead man's vintage, Zen is out of his realm in many ways. He doesn't know the language of wine or wine making, nor is he privy to the generations-old secrets that may lie behind the mutilation and murder of wealthy, unpopular Aldo Vincenzo, whose DOC Barbaresco is the best wine of the region. In jail, but only for a while, is the victim's son, Manlio, who fought loudly with his father the evening before the body was discovered. The subsequent deaths of a local truffle hunter and another vintner provide clues, but Zen's course is twisted, complicated further by his continuing distress over his girlfriend's recent abortion, by anonymous phone calls he receives at odd locations, by unexpected bouts of somnambulism and by the intimations of a local hashish-smoking, harpsichord-playing physician that the policeman harbors a deep-seated psychological problem. Even so, Zen is a masterful investigator, who steps well beyond the bounds of accepted interrogation to ferret out the decades-old relationships of love and deep resentment that surface in the current sequence of murders. The path to his ultimate success in this layered case is, as usual, pure pleasure for Dibdin's readers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 3rd edition (February 29, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375704019
• ISBN-13: 978-0375704017
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Which wine best compliments a Murder?, August 16, 2000

By 

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

This review is from: A Long Finish (Paperback)

In addition to all the wonderful reasons that make Michael Dibdin a pleasure to read, "A Long Finish", adds content for the gourmet. The wines of Alba and the "white diamonds" as the local whites truffles are reverently called, are components of a mystery that exposes another of the unconventional Italian priorities that Aurelio Zen constantly confronts.

The question of whether a Father was murdered by his Son is of little concern to those who pull the strings that bring Aurelio to Alba. The Son must be released, as only he can bring in the grapes that create the wine so desperately desired by a prominent Italian and many others. To devotees of wine I mean no offense, but the descriptions offered at a wine tasting often make for great humor. "Nice bouquet, great legs, fingers and thighs a bit weak, but they are buttressed by a boisterous bosom. A fruity opening, a woody polyester transition, and finally a finish that is crisp yet smooth with a suggestion of cinnamon, the barest hint of the citric, and finally dishwater".

Why has a top crime investigator from Rome been brought, because "he appears to be intelligent, devious and effective, compromised by only a regrettable tendency to insist on a conventional conception of morality at certain crucial moments". So with that career making resume material in hand, "Dottore" is off to get the grapes bottled.

This really is one of the best in the series, the only installment I have yet to read is "Cabal" and if it meets this performance the collection of writing is nearly perfect. The story has all the murders so unique, the guilty, the innocent, the guilty that wish they were, and all the rest of the maze that Mr. Dibdin is rightfully noted for.

He also can really describe wine unlike my feeble attempt. "Barolo is the Bach of wine, strong, supremely structured, a little forbidding, but absolutely fundamental. Barbaresco is the Beethoven, taking those qualities and lifting them to heights of subjective passion and pain that have never been surpassed. And Brunello is its Brahms. The softer, fuller, romantic afterglow of so much strenuous excess".

That bit of prose is offered up in the earliest of pages of this work, and Dibdin's pen does not fail or even skip throughout the tale. This story also has a dry satire, and a certain outrageousness that might be comical if placed within a less dire context.

Again a great body of work that I hope will continue for many more years.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another masterful mystery from Dibdin, June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Long Finish: An Aurelio Zen Mystery (Hardcover)

Since Michael Dibdin is one of my favorite writers, I expected excellence and was not disappointed. Combines with dark humor, a twisted story and facinating background on Italy's wine industry. Dibdin's writing style is beautiful; his descriptive narrative is the essence of every writing teachers' favorite saying: "Don't tell us - SHOW us".

Two warnings: as he often does, Dibdin starts the book with a purposely opaque and confusing first chapter which is clarified as the story unfolds. Also, I found the book to be far more violent than his past works. Still eagerly awaiting Zen's next assignment.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "A Long Finish" Another Michael Dibdin mystery/travel guide., February 6, 2001

By 

Richard A. Davis "rad53" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Long Finish (Paperback)

Mr. Dibdin has done it again! The Aurelio Zen mysteries are taking us all over Italy. From Perugia in "Ratking", Sardinia in "Vendetta", Rome in "Cabal", Venice in "Dead Lagoon", Naples in "Cosi Fan Tutti" and now Alba in "A Long Finish". I think these books keep getting better and better. Aurelio Zen is my favorite detective. Keep 'em coming Mr. Dibdin!