If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. This is it -- the final Aurelio Zen novel, now that death has claimed the Italian copper's talented creator, Michael Dibdin. End Games is a fitting finale to a remarkable series of books, in which Dibdin developed the character of his difficult but tenacious Italian policeman and, inter alia, gave readers a vivid and atmospheric picture of the whole of Italy in all its splendour, colour and corruption.

This last book transports Zen to far-flung Calabria for what she appears to be a by-the-numbers assignment. But in this close-mouthed, inhospitable place, Zen discovers that there is a worm at the heart of a community and secrets that reach back over centuries. A savage killing has taken place, and investigations are compromised by the presence of people from other countries in search of a buried treasure.

In the past, Dibdin ensured that Zen repeatedly came up against a wall of silence, but none more implacable than that he encounters here. As the detective slowly but surely peels away the layers of mystery and obfuscation, he is forced to confront the very basis of the concepts by which he has tried to maintain his career: honesty, a sense of justice and firm notions of right and wrong. As always with this writer, the sense of locale is conjured up with maximum vividness, and the final effect of reading the book that writes finis to the careers of both Aurelio Zen and the man who created him is twofold: we are grateful that this final entry is a distinguished one, but saddened that we will never again go down those mean Italian streets that Zen led us down - at least not with Michael Dibdin as our guide... --Barry Forshaw

2008-01-01 Michael Dibdin - End Games

After the criminally misunderstood Back to Bologna, Dibdin returned to a more traditional (by his standards, in any case) tone for what would sadly prove to be his last Aurelio Zen novel (and, to get this straight: this is all Dibdin's work. The proofs were released a good while before he died, and, I had finished my copy the very day before he passed away. So no more mumbling about it being completed post-mortem, please.) It still has the cruel wit of the previous novel, but lacks the elements of farce and pastiche which made Back to Bologna such an unconventional work in his canon. And, as a result, is far more likely to be appreciated both by existing fans and newcomers. Indeed, in tyhat traditional sense End Games is a complete return to his novels of old, prior to And Then You Die, say, or maybe even Cosi Fan Tuti. Zen is on excellent form, more interesting in this novel than possibly ever before. Posted to Calabria to investigate the disappearance of an American ex-pat lawyer, he meets with a wall of silence and the uncomfortable presence of an American film director looking to film an interpretation of the Book of Revelations, and his backers, who themselves are hunting for something far more related to Zen's profession...

Here, if it is even possible, Dibdin conveys the best portrait of any of his chosen Itaian regions yet, the most atmospheric rendition of a time and place. With both his outsiders and insiders eye, Dibdin consistently manages to produce twistedly authentic pictures of his Italy, laid bare with a logical and sometimes wilfully baffled eye. The writing itself has absolute wit, and can be lushly biting in its description of people and their motives. His can be clear in his prose as well as being able to create sentences that writhe like vines, ripe with humour, insight, and lexical wizardy all at the same time. Above all things, Dibdin was always a supremely brilliant writer of prose, and that is why he never really put a foot wrong. The literary world has lost a great talent, but End Games - completely engaging, full of event, suspenseful and an absolute reader's treat - is a wonderful final note to leave on. In the backlists of crime fiction, long live Aurelio Zen!