Cabal - 3 (34 page)

Dead Lagoon

Zen returns to his native Venice to investigate the disappearance of a rich American resident, while confronting disturbing revelations about his own life.

Cosi Fan Tutti

Zen finds himself in Naples, a city trying to clean up its act – perhaps too literally, as politicians, businessmen and mafiosi begin to disappear off the streets.

A Long Finish

Back in Rome, Zen is given an unorthodox assignment: to release the jailed scion of an important wine-growing family who is accused of a brutal murder.

Blood Rain

The gruesome discovery of an unidentified corpse in a railway carriage in Sicily marks the beginning of Zen’s most difficult and dangerous case.

And Then You Die

After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, Zen is trying to lie low at a beach resort on the Tuscan coast, but an alarming number of people are dropping dead around him.

Medusa

When human remains are found in abandoned military tunnels, the case leads Zen back into the murky history of post-war Italy.

Back to Bologna

Zen is called to Bologna to investigate the murder of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team.

End Games

After a brutal murder in the heart of a tight-knit traditional community in Calabria, Zen is determined to find a way to penetrate the code of silence and uncover the truth.

About the Author

Michael John Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton in 1947. His mother was a nurse and his father a Cambridge-educated physicist with a passionate enthusiasm for folk music. The family travelled extensively around Britain until Michael turned seven, when they settled in Northern Ireland.

After graduating with an English degree from Sussex University he took a Master’s Degree at the University of Alberta, Canada. Dibdin’s first published novel,
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
, his self-proclaimed ‘pastiche’, appeared in 1978. Shortly afterwards he moved to Italy to teach for a number of years at the University of Perugia where he was inspired to write a second novel,
A Rich Full Death
, set in Victorian Florence. In 1988 he wrote
Ratking
, the first of the famous crime series featuring the Italian detective Aurelio Zen. The novel won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award. Other books in this series include three of his best received titles,
Cabal
(1992), which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier,
Dead Lagoon
(1994), and finally
End Games
, published posthumously in 2007. Amongst his best-received non-Zen novels were
The Dying of the Light
, an Agatha Christie pastiche, and the darkly comic
Dirty
Tricks
.

While Dibdin travelled frequently to Italy, he lived in Seattle with his wife the novelist Kathrine Beck, from where he wrote all but the first three Zen novels. The city also provided a new location for his other detective novels including
Dark Spectre
(1995) and
Thanksgiving
(2000), the story of a British journalist’s obsession with his recently dead American wife.

Michael Dibdin died in 2007 at the age of 60.

By the Same Author

THE LAST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY

A RICH FULL DEATH

THE TRYST

DIRTY TRICKS

THE DYING OF THE LIGHT

DARK SPECTRE

THANKSGIVING

Aurelio Zen Series

RATKING

VENDETTA

DEAD LAGOON

COSI FAN TUTTI

A LONG FINISH

BLOOD RAIN

AND THEN YOU DIE

MEDUSA

BACK TO BOLOGNA

END GAMES