"'Ultra' football fan – and the student's illegal immigrant girlfriend, who calls herself Princess Flavia of Ruritanian, as well as the world's worst private detective, who fancies himself a Chandleresque Private Eye. This is Zen at the centre of a black comedy. Back to Bologna Back to Bologna is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the tenth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Zen, an Italian police detective, is on sick leave after a stomach operation and is feeling a shadow of himself. His relationship with his partner, Gemma, is also not going well. She is about to"
"Michael Dibdin Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime writer who was famous for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands of England. The son of a physicist, he was brought up from the age of seven in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, where he attended the Friends' School. He graduated with a degree in English from Sussex University, and then went to study for a Master's degree at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After publishing his first"
"appeared posthumously in July 2007. He also wrote other detective works set in America and in England. Later he lived in Seattle, Washington. Dibdin was married three times, most recently to the novelist K. K. Beck. He died on 30 March 2007, in Seattle, following a short illness. Michael Dibdin Michael Dibdin (21 March 1947 – 30 March 2007) was a British crime writer who was famous for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy. Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands of England. The son of a physicist, he was brought"
"desk every morning, not the least of which is a brothel on the top floor of the police station of which he is nominally in command. But corrupt politicians, shady businessmen and eminent ""mafiosi"" are disappearing off the streets at an alarming rate and although Zen's commitment to his work is at an all-time low, he finds himself reluctantly embroiled. Cosi Fan Tutti Cosi Fan Tutti is a novel by Michael Dibdin, the fifth entry in the Aurelio Zen series. One strand of the plot plays on the storyline of the Mozart opera ""Così fan tutte"". In addition, the chapter"
"Cosi Fan Tutti Cosi Fan Tutti is a novel by Michael Dibdin, the fifth entry in the Aurelio Zen series. One strand of the plot plays on the storyline of the Mozart opera ""Così fan tutte"". In addition, the chapter titles are all taken from the titles of sections of the opera libretto. Under a cloud again, Italian police detective Zen thinks he has found himself a backwater sinecure in Naples, Italy, where he can coast towards retirement. He is prepared to tolerate all manner of scams in return for a quiet life with pastries and a cappuccino on his"
"Vendetta (Dibdin novel) Vendetta is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the second book in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Zen has earned a return to the fold of actual police work, but now officials in a high government ministry are desperate to finger someone—anyone—for the murder of an eccentric billionaire, whose corrupt dealings have enriched some of the most exalted figures in Italian politics. However, Oscar Burolo's murder would seem to be not just unsolvable but impossible. The magnate was killed on a heavily fortified Sardinian estate, where every room was monitored by video cameras. Those cameras captured"
"he actually does get to the bottom of both his overt and covert enquiries, he leaves Venice in frustration and with childhood illusions shattered. Dead Lagoon Dead Lagoon is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the fourth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Moonlighting, Italian police detective Zen engineers a posting to his home town of Venice, Italy on a pretext in order to investigate the disappearance of an American millionaire on behalf of his American ex-girlfriend. He needs the extra money to set up home with his new girlfriend with room for his aged mother. His investigations"
"Zen onto the case. The search for the truth leads him into the turbulent political history of Italy during the seventies and also into obscure corners of modern-day affluent society, exposing the sordid details of a crime that everyone else had forgotten. The story is told from the view points of several of those involved and the action moves between Rome, the extreme northern province of Alto Adige, an Italian enclave and tax haven in Switzerland, and several provincial Italian cities. The focus is on movement, rather than the methodical application of the police process; Zen takes short cuts with"
"Dead Lagoon Dead Lagoon is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the fourth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Moonlighting, Italian police detective Zen engineers a posting to his home town of Venice, Italy on a pretext in order to investigate the disappearance of an American millionaire on behalf of his American ex-girlfriend. He needs the extra money to set up home with his new girlfriend with room for his aged mother. His investigations lead him into conflict with a charismatic local rising politician and a childhood friend before he discovers a shocking truth about his father. Although"
"the latter and arrives at the solution in a rush. Medusa (Dibdin novel) Medusa is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the ninth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series about an Italian police detective. When a group of Austrian cavers exploring in the Italian Alps comes across human remains at the bottom of a deep shaft, everyone assumes the death was accidental. But then the body is removed from the morgue and the Defence Ministry puts a news blackout on the case. Smelling a rat, and seeing an opportunity to embarrass their political rivals in the run-up to"
"novel, a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, he lived for four years in Italy, teaching at the university in Perugia. Dibdin is best known for his Aurelio Zen mysteries, set in Italy. The first of these, ""Ratking"", won the 'Gold Dagger' award of 1988. This series of detective novels provide a penetrating insight into the less visible aspects of Italian society over the last 20 years. The earlier books have a lightness of touch that gradually becomes much darker. The character of Zen himself is anti-heroic, which adds much to the books' irony and black humour. A final Zen book, ""End Games"","
"Burolo's grisly death, but not the face of his killer. Zen grapples, in his idiosyncratic fashion, with this apparent ""locked door"" mystery by launching an ill-advised solo undercover investigation, amongst the fallout from which he is confronted by an almost forgotten face from the past, who now stalks him with vengeful intent. The novel was adapted for television by the BBC, starring Rufus Sewell in the title role. It was aired in January 2011. Vendetta (Dibdin novel) Vendetta is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the second book in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Zen has earned a return"
"Cabal (Dibdin novel) Cabal is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and the third entry in the Aurelio Zen series. When, one dark night in November, Prince Ludovico Ruspanti fell a hundred and fifty feet to his death in the chapel at St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, there were a number of questions to be answered. The answer the Vatican housekeepers want is rubber-stamped suicide. Zen, whose bad luck it is to be on call that night, is keen to oblige and return to his girlfriend's bed. Unfortunately for him, things turn out to be not that simple and he finds that"
"The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders (1999) is a crime novel by Australian author Marshall Browne. It won the 2000 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel. This novel is the first of the author's series of novels about Inspector Anders of the Rome police force. Ten years before the book begins Anders closed down an anarchist group and lost his leg in the action. Now he has been provided with one last case before his early retirement, an investigation into the murder of a well-respected judge in southern Italy. Anders becomes deeply involved"
"which she noted down in minuscule papers that she later hid in the buttons of her coat. Her cautiousness saved her life at the end of July: she was arrested, but the accusations against her were dropped. She avoided the destiny of other Italian spies, who were found out and executed during the same period. Zeni's works include the following: Luisa Zeni Luisa Zeni (Arco, 1896 - 1940) was an Italian secret agent and writer. She was born in Arco, Trentino, in 1896. The daughter of a blacksmith, she lost her mother when a small child. She lived in the"
"Carlo Zeno Carlo Zeno (or Zen) (1333 – March 8, 1418) was an Italian admiral from Venice, who is considered a hero of the War of Chioggia against the Republic of Genoa. Destined for an ecclesiastical career, Zeno studied at Padua, but dedicated himself instead to pursuing women and the good life. He thus ran out of money and enlisted in a band of mercenaries, returning to Venice after four or five years. While at Patras, the city was attacked by Turkish forces. Zeno distinguished himself in battle, but later made himself a hunted man after he killed a Christian"
"tatuaggio"", and ""Anime perdute"". ""Notturno veneziano con messa nera e fantasmi d'amore"" and the nonfiction ""I dieci"" examined the Italian scientists who signed the ""Racial Manifesto"" in 1938 leading to the introduction of racial laws. Among his other works of fiction are ""I semidei"", a spy story set in contemporary Italy with clear references to many of the major figures involved in Tangentopoli inspired by his work as journalist, ""Il signore degli specchi"" on the life of Nostradamus, and ""Scroll"" on the legend that Shakespeare may not have been English. He is also the author a five-volume series on the"
"Apostolo Zeno Apostolo Zeno (11 December 1669 in Venice – 11 November 1750 in Venice) was a Venetian poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters. Apostolo Zeno was born of Cretan Greek descent in Venice in 1669. His father was Pietro Zeno a doctor of medicine and his mother, Caterina Sevasto, belonged to the Sevasti, an illustrious and powerful Greek family of Candia, Crete. A Venetian nobleman, he was in 1691 among the founders of the ""Accademia degli Animosi"". In 1695, he composed his first libretto, ""Gli inganni felici"", which obtained great success, making him a fashionable librettist. From 1705,"
"Venice aging and infirm and died in 1418 at the age of 85. He was given a public funeral, which was attended in large numbers by the genuinely grateful Venetian people. Carlo Zeno is the protagonist of Gabriele D'Annunzio's 1908 tragedy ""La nave"". D'Annunzio used the character of the Medieval admiral as a vehicle to glorify modern Italian nationalism and specifically promote the creation of a strong Italian sea power. In 1921 it was adapted into a film directed by D'Annunzio's son Gabriellino D'Annunzio. Carlo Zeno Carlo Zeno (or Zen) (1333 – March 8, 1418) was an Italian admiral from"
"rise to hatred and hostility toward the Jewish people. ""Numero Zero"" was published in 2015. Set in 1992 and narrated by Colonna, a hack journalist working on a Milan newspaper, it offers a satire of Italy's kickback and bribery culture as well as, among many things, the legacy of Fascism. Ten essays on methods of abductive inference in Poe's Dupin, Doyle's Holmes, Peirce and many others, 236 pages. Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (; ; 5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian novelist, literary critic, philosopher, semiotician, and university professor. He is widely known for his 1980 novel"
"autism. Eco’s plot is woven around a succession of events from the final days of the Second World War to the terrorist attacks of the 1970s, with references to many figures from the past seventy years of Italian history: fascists and partisans, presidents and prime ministers (Aldo Moro, Francesco Cossiga, Giulio Andreotti), popes (John Paul I and John Paul II), bankers (Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi, Cardinal Marcinkus) and secret organizations (Special Operations Executive, CIA, Operation Gladio and the Red Brigades). Numero Zero Numero Zero () is the seventh novel by Italian author and philosopher Umberto Eco and his final novel"
"with both the judge's widow and the all-pervading corruption surrounding the investigation as he works towards a conclusion. The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders (1999) is a crime novel by Australian author Marshall Browne. It won the 2000 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel. This novel is the first of the author's series of novels about Inspector Anders of the Rome police force. Ten years before the book begins Anders closed down an anarchist group and lost his leg in the action. Now he has been provided with one last case before his"
"Italo Svevo Aron Ettore Schmitz (19 December 186113 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (), was an Italian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. A close friend of Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, Svevo was considered a pioneer of the psychological novel in Italy and is best known for his classic Modernist novel ""La Coscienza di Zeno"" (1923), a work that had a profound effect on the movement. Born in Trieste (then in Austrian Empire, after 1867 Austria-Hungary) as Aron Ettore Schmitz to a Jewish German father and an Italian mother, Svevo was one"
"of the protagonist and into the effect that his work as a detective has on his personal life; this is another key feature of this genre. They also project a strong sense of place through the use of locations in Edinburgh and around Scotland and through the inclusion of distinctively Scottish speech and cultural references. These are all characteristics that make the Meldrum novels comparable to the highly regarded Italian-based Aurelio Zen series by fellow crime writer Michael Dibdin. In a 2002 article for the Association for Scottish Literary Studies Lindsay described his work on the Meldrum books as a"
"Augusto De Angelis Augusto De Angelis (28 June 1888 – 18 July 1944) was an Italian writer and journalist, active in particular during the Fascist rule in Italy. De Angelis was born in Rome. He published his first mystery, "" Il banchiere assassinato"", in 1935. He subsequently wrote some twenty crime books, whose protagonist is Commissario Carlo De Vincenzi of the ""squadra mobile"" of Milan. Some of them were adapted for television by RAI in 1974–1977, with Paolo Stoppa playing the role of De Vincenzi. Despite the success of the books, the Fascist government banned them. De Angelis was arrested"
"Inspector De Luca (novel series) The Inspector De Luca mysteries, also called the De Luca trilogy, consist of three Italian novels, ""Carte Blanche"" (, 1990), ""The Damned Season"" (, 1991), and ""Goose Street"" ( (1996) by Italian crime fiction writer Carlo Lucarelli. The novels have been noted for the setting in the period between the collapse of the Fascist government of Italy in 1943 and installation of the Italian Social Republic puppet state of Nazi Germany from 1943 to 1945, and the immediate postwar period, and also for the tenacious attitude of the protagonist policeman - a feature also found"
"will steal it and destroy the world, setting it free of sickness. Zeno's Conscience Zeno's Conscience ( ) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini, and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps at the insistence of his psychiatrist. Throughout the novel, we learn about his father, his business, his wife, and his tobacco habit. The novel was self-published in 1923. The original English translation was published under the title Confessions of Zeno. The novel is presented as a diary written by Zeno (who claims that it is full of"
"Luisa Zeni Luisa Zeni (Arco, 1896 - 1940) was an Italian secret agent and writer. She was born in Arco, Trentino, in 1896. The daughter of a blacksmith, she lost her mother when a small child. She lived in the early years of the twentieth century, in the climate of growing tension within the Austro-Hungarian Empire between Italians and Germans. An irredentist, she came from a region hesitant between a centuries-old loyalty to the Habsburgs and the call for Italian independence. After crossing the border in 1914, she played an important role in the pro-war propaganda within the Committee of"
"reality. Zeno Cosini, the narrator of Italo Svevo's ""Zeno's Conscience"", is a typical example of unreliable narrator: in fact the novel is presented as a diary of Zeno himself, who unintentionally distorts the facts to justify his faults. His psychiatrist, who publishes the diary, claims in the introduction that it's a mix of truths and lies. Pi Patel, the narrator of Yann Martel's 2001 novel ""Life of Pi"" tells two conflicting versions of his story. After spending many days adrift at sea, he recounts a fanciful story in which he shared his lifeboat with a zebra, orangutan, hyena (which killed"
"Renzo Novatore Abele Rizieri Ferrari (May 12, 1890 – November 29, 1922), better known by the pen name Renzo Novatore, was an Italian individualist anarchist, illegalist and anti-fascist poet, philosopher and militant, now mostly known for his posthumously published book ""Toward the Creative Nothing"" (""Verso il nulla creatore"") and associated with ultra-modernist trends of futurism. His thought is influenced by Max Stirner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Palante, Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Schopenhauer and Charles Baudelaire. Abele Ricieri Ferrari was born in Arcola, Liguria, Italy on May 12, 1890 in a poor peasant family. He did not adjust to school discipline"
"Jean-Claude Izzo Jean-Claude Izzo (Marseille 20 June 1945 – Marseille 26 January 2000) was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who achieved sudden fame in the mid-1990s with the publication of his three neo-noir crime novels ""Total Chaos"", ""Chourmo"", and ""Solea"" (widely known as the Marseilles Trilogy), featuring as protagonist ex-cop Fabio Montale, and set in the author's native city of Marseille. All have been translated into English by Howard Curtis. Jean-Claude Izzo was born on 20 June 1945 in Marseille, France. His father was an Italian immigrant from Castel San Giorgio (provincia di Salerno) and his maternal grandfather"
"Angelo Tumino Angelo Tumino (April 28, 1973 - ) is an Italian novelist and poet. His debut novel Invasione negata (""Denied Invasion"") had a great success. Published in 2010, the book sold 50,000 copies, and was noted for its stark depiction of the relationship of Italians and foreigners in the slums of large cities. The author was accused of racism, and had to be escorted by police during subsequent presentations and conferences. Tumino worked for several years as a gondoliere in Venice, which provided the setting for American Gondolier (2012). In 2014 he wrote a novel about Silvio Berlusconi titled"
"Zeno's Conscience Zeno's Conscience ( ) is a novel by Italian writer Italo Svevo. The main character is Zeno Cosini, and the book is the fictional character's memoirs that he keeps at the insistence of his psychiatrist. Throughout the novel, we learn about his father, his business, his wife, and his tobacco habit. The novel was self-published in 1923. The original English translation was published under the title Confessions of Zeno. The novel is presented as a diary written by Zeno (who claims that it is full of lies), published by his doctor. The doctor has left a little note"