Rating: 
Summary: The plot, like Venice, takes many interesting twists & turns
Review: I was looking for an "atmospheric" book to read while I was in Venice. By luck, I found Dead Lagoon and I feel my choice couldn't have been better. The main character, Aurelio Zen, is like the city herself - gritty, complex, flawed but still fascinating. I also found myself thinking that I don't like a lot of things about this guy. But like a car crash on the side of the road, I found it impossible to look away. I had to see how things worked themselves out. I especially enjoyed the way the politics of Italian bureaucracy colors nearly every one of his moves - it's almost like it's another character. I admit reading it from a hotel room on the Grand Canal has probably influenced my review, but I still recommend it because talented writers like Dibdin need to be encouraged to keep working at their craft.
Rating: 
Summary: Enchanting
Review: I'm a new reader of Michael Dibdin and am already hooked. Aurelio Zen is a thinking person's detective and a modern Italian version of the world-weary, incorruptible, and cynical hardboiled detectives of the 1930s. The mystery itself is compelling, with a ghost story as the key to intricate, overlapping conspiracies. But the glory of the book is its Venetian topography, along with its insights into Zen's psychological terrain and finely-honed sense of justice. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: An Evocative Representation of Venice
Review: In this installment of the Aurelio Zen series, the protagonist's visit to his native city of Venice is fraught with desire. Zen's dreams include moving away from the detestable Rome and installing himself with his mother and girlfriend Tania into a the Zen villa off the Cannaregio canal. His fantasy lacks substance only because the money he has isn't nearly what he needs to refurbish the decaying house. With his hachet-sharp mind, Zen figures out a way to subsidize his scanty paycheck; he will discover the whereabouts, alive or dead, of a wealthy missing American whose family is willing to pay him plenty to end the legal quagmire his estate is in. In order to stay in Venice in an offical capacity, he attaches himself to a seemingly simple case involving one of his mother's acquaintances, a batty old countess who swears she is being terrorized by intruders in her own stately palazzo. But, Aurelio's best laid machinations fall, so-to-speak, in the black wells known as the pozzi neri or septic tanks over which all the houses of Venice are built. As Zen attempts to solve his investigative puzzles and family problems with his best intentions, he is sidetracked by meeting old friends, one of which is immersed in a political movement meant to eventually restore Venice to it former strategic position as a great trading nation---the other the attractive wife of the movement's leader. With the addition of these new factors, Zen's intital dreams shift and change like the waters in the canals.
Being lucky enough to have visited Venice myself, I found Dibdin's audio, visual and olifactory portrait of the city remarkable. The labyrinth of small bridges, canals and walkways are expertly rendered and a joy to read. As always with this series, Zen's ability to bend the law to his own advantage and pull in favors embues the novel with a gritty realism. His thoughts of his mother, his girlfriends, past and present are priceless, adding just the right comedic touch to lighten his otherwise cynical existence.
Rating:
Summary: An Evocative Representation of Venice
Review: In this installment of the Aurelio Zen series, the protagonist's visit to his native city of Venice is fraught with desire. Zen's dreams include moving away from the detestable Rome and installing himself with his mother and girlfriend Tania into a the Zen villa off the Cannaregio canal. His fantasy lacks substance only because the money he has isn't nearly what he needs to refurbish the decaying house. With his hachet-sharp mind, Zen figures out a way to subsidize his scanty paycheck; he will discover the whereabouts, alive or dead, of a wealthy missing American whose family is willing to pay him plenty to end the legal quagmire his estate is in. In order to stay in Venice in an offical capacity, he attaches himself to a seemingly simple case involving one of his mother's acquaintances, a batty old countess who swears she is being terrorized by intruders in her own stately palazzo. But, Aurelio's best laid machinations fall, so-to-speak, in the black wells known as the pozzi neri or septic tanks over which all the houses of Venice are built. As Zen attempts to solve his investigative puzzles and family problems with his best intentions, he is sidetracked by meeting old friends, one of which is immersed in a political movement meant to eventually restore Venice to it former strategic position as a great trading nation---the other the attractive wife of the movement's leader. With the addition of these new factors, Zen's intital dreams shift and change like the waters in the canals.
Being lucky enough to have visited Venice myself, I found Dibdin's audio, visual and olifactory portrait of the city remarkable. The labyrinth of small bridges, canals and walkways are expertly rendered and a joy to read. As always with this series, Zen's ability to bend the law to his own advantage and pull in favors embues the novel with a gritty realism. His thoughts of his mother, his girlfriends, past and present are priceless, adding just the right comedic touch to lighten his otherwise cynical existence.
Rating:
Summary: A Venetian mystery for readers who hate whodunits
Review: Michael Dibdin isn't just a winner of the Crime Writers Association's Gold Dagger award--he's also one of today's most literate writers in any genre. DEAD LAGOON is an evocative, stylishly written mystery novel that captures the spirit and mood of Venice in the 1990s. Even if you don't normally read mysteries, DEAD LAGOON deserves a spot on your Venice reading list.
Durant Imboden, Venice for Visitors, http://govenice.miningco.co
Rating:
Summary: Venice as character
Review: Misty, mysterious Venice is always a favourite "character", whether it be in fiction or biography. Venice does not give up its secrets easily, and Dibdin is a master at ensuring the tension builds and the plot is assisted through location. He is equally adept at characterisation - the restless, driven Zen, who confronts several ethical dilemmas along the way, and several of the supporting "cast" , all of whom come to life and populate the setting magnificently. The story itself is intriguing, with enough revelations along the way. There is no great finale denouement, more a piecing together of the jigsaw, and one great personal revelation about Zen's family background. I thought Dibdin was at his very best when the action moves to the Questura (police headquarters). I half expected Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti to come strollign along the corridor! The "chase" sequence - on foot and boat through wintry night time Venice was also excellent. Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys top quality crime fiction. No formulaic writing here!
Rating:
Summary: Venice as character
Review: Misty, mysterious Venice is always a favourite "character", whether it be in fiction or biography. Venice does not give up its secrets easily, and Dibdin is a master at ensuring the tension builds and the plot is assisted through location. He is equally adept at characterisation - the restless, driven Zen, who confronts several ethical dilemmas along the way, and several of the supporting "cast" , all of whom come to life and populate the setting magnificently. The story itself is intriguing, with enough revelations along the way. There is no great finale denouement, more a piecing together of the jigsaw, and one great personal revelation about Zen's family background. I thought Dibdin was at his very best when the action moves to the Questura (police headquarters). I half expected Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti to come strollign along the corridor! The "chase" sequence - on foot and boat through wintry night time Venice was also excellent. Thoroughly recommended for anyone who enjoys top quality crime fiction. No formulaic writing here!
Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful writer
Review: My first introduction to Dibdin was Dark Specter, which I thought was average. Then I tried Ratking, which I found to be a little too verbose for my taste. However, he's really hit the mark with this one, in my opinion. Smart, taut, winding, Dibdin's mystery is elegantly plotted and rich in cultural and political detail. Maybe it was the alluring cover but this book struck me as much more colorful and lush than the other two.
Rating:
Summary: DEAD LAGOON
Review: My introduction to Michael Dibdin and Aurelio Zen was a welcome one. I'm always in search for detectives with the intelligence and depth of personality evident in Colin Dexter's Chief Inspector Morse. Zen was not a disappointment and I'm waiting anxiously for several other Dibdin titles that I've recently ordered or won at auction. DEAD LAGOON, if you've been to Venice, is a wonderful flashback to the mood of that city with its many twists and turns of canals, streets and dark alleys. The only comparable for capturing Venice that I've read (or seen in a movie version) is Daphne Du Maurier's DON'T LOOK NOW. A great read - not to be missed!
Rating:
Summary: Another great Zen mystery.
Review: One of the best in the Aurelio Zen series along with Cabal. Dibdin is supreme in this series when using Italian bureaucracy to bring the characters down to earth. In this novel he evokes a Venetian setting for the mystery comparable with Conan Doyle's London for atmosphere.
Zen is a wonderfully fallible protaganist. On top of it all sits an intricate thriller. All the books in the series are great it's a shame they're not more popular in the States.
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