Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: After reading two previous books in the Arelio Zen series I was looking forward to bringing this one along on vacation. What a large disappointment this was. The author seems to just cruising along, there is no character development, and no real mystery, and no compelling reason to read it. The book is extremely short - less than 200 pages. Has the author given up, or does he really intend the series to continue? For a mystery series which just seems to get better with each book, read the Ancient Roman series by Steven Saylor.
Rating: 
Summary: A long-awaited entry in a great series
Review: At last Aurelio is back, and better than ever! Aurelio Zen is one of my favorite characters and I heartily recommend ANY books in Michael Dibdin's series about this wonderful Italian "just a common policeman." Locales and backgrounds, as the stories move him around the country, are so richly drawn it's like traveling in Italy while having a great adventure. Plots are never simply black & white, but many layered, and the characters are complex. The previous entry (Blood Rain)caused tremendous consternation among my friends who are also fans: "How could Michael Dibdin do it; do you think he really killed off Aurelio? Trust yourself to Mr. Dibdin's writing skill and climb aboard for great ride. We were so excited when the new book came out we didn't even plan to share copies; we each went out and bought our own--it was worth it. We hope Michael Dibdin is well-started on the next one.
Rating:
Summary: A long-awaited entry in a great series
Review: At last Aurelio is back, and better than ever! Aurelio Zen is one of my favorite characters and I heartily recommend ANY books in Michael Dibdin's series about this wonderful Italian "just a common policeman." Locales and backgrounds, as the stories move him around the country, are so richly drawn it's like traveling in Italy while having a great adventure. Plots are never simply black & white, but many layered, and the characters are complex. The previous entry (Blood Rain)caused tremendous consternation among my friends who are also fans: "How could Michael Dibdin do it; do you think he really killed off Aurelio? Trust yourself to Mr. Dibdin's writing skill and climb aboard for great ride. We were so excited when the new book came out we didn't even plan to share copies; we each went out and bought our own--it was worth it. We hope Michael Dibdin is well-started on the next one.
Rating: 
Summary: dark wit prevails
Review: Fans will be pleased to know that Italian detective Aurelio Zen survived the bombing that ended the last book in the series, "Blood Rain," though his life is still at risk as he waits, incognito, to testify at an American Mafia trial. Forced to enjoy a traditional Italian beach holiday, Zen occupies the same beach chair on the same strip of sand each day, conducting a mild flirtation with his beach neighbor, until the people around him - those who take his beach chair, for instance, begin to die.
Dibdin's trademark humor and dark wit is in good form as Zen parries a flirtation and worries about traveling to America, a place the Roman Empire never occupied (so why would anyone else want to?), endures an exile on a prison island and a bizarre side trip to Iceland, "the end of the earth." This book winds up an ongoing plot line in an ingenious, over-the-top twist that sets the scene for the next chapter in Zen's eventful life.
Rating: 
Summary: Dazed and Confused
Review: I am an ardent fan of Michael Dibdin and our good friend, Aurelio Zen, and incredibly excited to find another book in the series. Zen lives! Having said that, I guess I just don't feel this one was quite up to standard (and a very high standard that is). In this book, Zen's adventures seem tongue in cheek. Diverted to Iceland? Criminalpol taken over by a guru of new management practices? Zen being put out to the pasture of "working from home"? Although the book has elements of farce, now that we know Zen is alive, well and in love again, Dibdin is duty bound to keep 'em coming!
Rating:
Summary: Dazed and Confused
Review: I am an ardent fan of Michael Dibdin and our good friend, Aurelio Zen, and incredibly excited to find another book in the series. Zen lives! Having said that, I guess I just don't feel this one was quite up to standard (and a very high standard that is). In this book, Zen's adventures seem tongue in cheek. Diverted to Iceland? Criminalpol taken over by a guru of new management practices? Zen being put out to the pasture of "working from home"? Although the book has elements of farce, now that we know Zen is alive, well and in love again, Dibdin is duty bound to keep 'em coming!
Rating:
Summary: bizarre
Review: It was the first (and only) book of this author I bought so I cannot judge other readers' claim that the earlier books were better. With this book at least I could not relate at all. A modern days european, middle aged policeman who has never heard of Los Angeles? Who, reading that the city's name derives from an old Spanish mission expects L.A. to be a cosy european-style city inhabited by catholics? Has this man really never heard about riots, the movie "colors", OJ Simpson or Hollywood and should still be considered a credible character? A man who really thinks that, having started from Italy and landing after only three hours flight, he is in L.A. now (instead of Iceland)? This guy could have fallen from another planet, irreal as he comes over. Having read half the book, I just did not care anymore about his further destiny.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Michael Dibdin is the author of one of the most delightful of all detective series - the seven splendid Aurelio Zen novels from "Ratking" through to "Blood Rain". The last ended tragically, Dibdin evidently having decided, very reasonably after seven books, that the series had run its course and it was time to move on to something fresher before it went stale. But now here we have Dibdin, for reasons best known to himself, doing a "Return of Sherlock Holmes" and resurrecting his hero. If there was some utterly terrific idea gnawing at him for some untold Zen story that just demanded telling, the resurrection would have carried more conviction. But what Dibdin has in fact given us is by far the slightest and least engaging of the Zen books so far. If you've read the others you'll be keen enough to read this too whatever anyone says. If you haven't, read the others first as they are far better. You'd want, in any case, to read "Blood Rain" first as this book rather presupposes that the reader knows what went on in that one. We meet Zen at the outset on the beach at the Tuscan resort of Versilia, having made a quite remarkably full recovery from being blown to smithereens in "Blood Rain". The authorities are keeping him comfortably out of the way so he can appear as a witness in a big mafia trial planned in the US, and he seems safe enough, quietly occupied with a spot of womanizing with Gemma, whose acquaintance he has struck up on the beach. Then suddenly someone is murdered and it rather appears Zen is the intended victim. Alarmed, the authorities bundle him off on to a 'plane to America where he will be put on a Federal Witness Protection Program. But he never gets there. He takes a dislike to the businessman in the seat next to that assigned to him and moves. Meanwhile the businessman spreads himself out to occupy both seats. And so he becomes the second person to get himself killed by sitting in the place where Zen should be sitting. Meanwhile a blocked toilet problem has diverted the 'plane to Iceland and the discovery of a corpse delays Zen and the other passengers there long enough at least for Zen to get very drunk and take a huge dislike to the place. It then turns out he won't be needed as a witness after all. One of the defendants has made a deal so he is sent back to Italy to resume his police career. Two more chapters follow, one in Rome, one back in Tuscany. Didbin is a brilliant writer and it's a witty and engaging enough read. But it doesn't add up to a whole lot. There's no very urgent sense of mystery. Indeed not all that much sense of danger, especially for a book where the protagonist has to deal with five attempts on his life. Even in his womanising, Zen seems to be going through the motions here. And so does Didbin. Why, one wonders, bother to strain our credibility with this resurrection and then do so little with it. The book remains diverting enough to be worth a read if you're a fan. It's far from just a waste of time, no "Alien Resurrection". But I fear it's not exactly "The Adventure of the Empty House" either.
Rating:
Summary: Excellence truncated
Review: The only criticism of this work is that it's too short. I think Dibdin is such a beutiful writer that the tale (ordinary enough) is almost secondary. Viva Aurelio..e Gemma !!
Rating:
Summary: A coda
Review: This is the eighth in the Aurelio Zen series. It is really a coda - a "what happened afterwards" - to Blood Rain (my favourite in the series). I don't belive it stands alone at all, and would not suggest this as an entry point to the Zen series. However, if you HAVE read Blood Rain, then I suggest you do read it. Despite the initially sunny and carefree setting, Zen's demons are REALLY dark, and his sanity in question, as a result of events in Blood Rain. Fortunately, things are looking up for Zen by the end, but I have to say I was very disappointed in the plotting in the final section especially. Whereas Zen has previously used guile, subterfuge and some dubious, even 'shady' techniques for getting himself out of trouble, I felt the actions here were too crude and simplistic, and then more closely resembled farce than displaying any plot ingenuity. This was by far the most disappointing in the series for me, but I am glad that Zen is back!
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