Michael Dibdin's likeable Italian cop Aurelio Zen has, by his appearance in the new Medusa, had more than enough of the deceit that passes for civil society; this is a new, darker Zen. When the corpse of a young officer who supposedly died in a plane crash 30 years ago turns up in a remote mountain tunnel, the rival agencies of the Italian state gear up to discredit each other over crimes long forgotten. Zen takes the case partly to obey his orders to help stitch up his boss's rivals in the security services, partly because he wants to get a modicum of justice done. This long-ago death is not going to be the last, as Zen and others race around gathering or destroying evidence; the solution to what happened all those years ago turns out to be both poignant and ingenious, and to symbolise just how even the nastier idealisms of the militarist far right can be subverted for quite sordid motives.

Like all of Dibdin's books, part of what makes us care is a vivid sense of what foggy streets smell like, or of the delicate sounds of a near-silent remote country hide-out, and part is Zen, a battered moralist who solves cases and then decides on what might be the right thing to do. --Roz Kaveney

2007-12-19 Clever Crime!

Dibdin seems to be an acquired taste for crime buffs and "Medusa" is no exception. If it's straightforward coherent mystery that you want, where it starts with a body and follows a detective around until he solves who did it, then Dibdin is probably not what you need. It starts with a body, sure, but the Detective (Aurelio Zen), turns up a few chapters later only to disappear again. Instead of the classic procedural, we end up with a series of vignettes that merge and overlap towards the end. Having said that, Medusa is one of the more `procedural-like' of Dibdin's Zen series, but still be prepared not to spent too much time in Zen's company as Dibdin visits all of the players in turn and their respective motivations.

I can see why this grates on crime aficionados, but with Dibdin, crime isn't just what you're getting. You're getting a very clever and humourous satire on modern Italian life / politics. Dibdin anchors Zen in a rich world where he is forever negotiating the deep dark and dirty machinations of various government agencies. Some of these infernal activities are dangerous and some are banal in only the way that Italian politics can be. Anyone who has spent any time in Italy will appreciate not only these machinations, but also the way in which Dibdin has a sly dig at them all the way through.

In terms of style, Dibdin is about as good as it gets - the plots are tightly controlled, realistic and develop with decent momentum. What stands out for me is the sheer depth of Italian atmosphere that Dibdin manages to convey - it's rich, like a deep Sicilian Barolo wine! Writer's like Donna Leon will (or tries to) express atmosphere through simple description, but Dibdin expresses it through his protagonists' interaction with their environment, which adds far more depth to our understanding, in my opinion.

Similarly, with characterisation, Dibdin excels. Zen himself is an uncomplicated man, and yet we still see a great deal of depth through his attitudes and his decision making processes. He's intuitive and combined with clever exposition and superb plotting, Forget Leon's staid and banal `diet-crime' - Dibdin's work for me is the stuff you should be reading on an Italian summer holiday or winter city break. It's rich, complex, clever, sometime bizarre, but always entertaining.

In sharp contrast to Donna Leon, nothing in Dibdin's work is wasted. Everything means something to the main thrust of the piece - there is no padding at all, and most of his novels come in at a relatively short 300 pages. As far as Medusa goes, I felt it started slowly, but quickly developed a decent plot that maintains my opinion that Dibdin was one of the best around. It may not be the best of the Zen series, but it's certainly a decent page-turner and an erudite, humorous social commentary that's certainly a worthy addition to anyone's crime library.



Rob