Medusa

by Michael Dibdin

Book Overview

After a decomposed body is discovered in an abandoned military tunnel, Inspector Aurelio Zen travels north to the Italian Alps to investigate. At first glance, the death appears to have been an accident. But when Zen takes a closer look, a mysterious tattoo begins to tell a much more sinister tale, especially after the body is snatched from the morgue. As Zen races to discover the inner workings of a clandestine military organization named Medusa,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400076080
• ISBN13: 9781400076086
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 259 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Dibden's the best

I loved all of Dibden's Aurelio Zen books, partly because I love Italy, but mostly because Dibden's style is hypnotic and his characters are much too human.

An excellent addition to the Zen mysteries

Medusa is an excellent addition to the Aurelio Zen mysteries. A faster pace than some of the others but a rich story in this brilliant series that takes us through the heart and soul of Italy. May there be many more to come.

MEDUSA is a winner!

Michael Dibdin's latest Italian mystery featuring Aurelio Zen is superb. This is his 9th in the Zen series and the best since `Dead Lagoon' was published in 1994. In his past Zen thrillers, Dibdin set each novel in a different location in Italy, e.g. Umbria, Sardinia, Venice, Naples, and Sicily, to name a few. Other mystery series writers pick a single location, i.e., Donna Leon sets her Commissario Brunetti series in Venice and Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia series is Florence-based. Well, MEDUSA is set in six different regions of Northern Italy. The plot centers around a body, buried for thirty years in a cave in the Dolomites; Zen works out of Rome, but lives in Lucca with his ladyfriend, Gemma from the last book; the main characters were associated with the military in the 1970s and now live in Milan, Verona, Campione (near Lugano) and a rural area near Pesaro in the Marche region. Inspector Zen is one busy guy traveling from place to place to solve this one. Zen works for the Polizia di Stato under the Interior Ministry, who are always in competition with the Carabinieri under the Defence Ministry. Dibdin does a great job of setting up this adversary situation to its fullest. Zen is trying to solve the mystery while the Carabinieri is trying to bury the facts from becoming public. This novel is very contemporary with many barbs directed toward Silvio Berlusconi and his current government. The plot is fast-moving and intriguing. In this one, Zen is all business and at his best, with his personal life taking a backseat, for a change.

Let's Hear It For the Venetians!

I just finished reading two Italian mysteries in a row...A Noble Radiance and Medusa. Who would have thought two such attractive characters as Aurelio Zen (Dibdin) and Guido Brunetti (Leon) would appear at the same time? In this latest Dibdin, Zen proves himself a master of the system in which he operates, playing both ends against the middle and the middle against both ends and managing to achieve a kind of rough justice. Wouldn't it be fun if Dibdin and Leon would collaborate on an adventure?

Zen and the Misteri d'Italia

In Rome, rumors are spreading that there will be a major shake up in the Cabinet. Political parties are threatening to pull out of the governing coalition. And as usual, the Ministry of the Interior is at war with the Ministry of Defense. In other words, a typical day in the Byzantine world of Italian politics.The book begins with the discovery of a soldier's body in a military tunnel complex high in the Italian Alps. A routine autopsy is interrupted when the Carbinieri steal the body in the early morning hours from the hospital's morgue. The Army is spooked and Aurelio Zen's bosses in the Ministry of the Interior sense an opportunity to embarass the Army. Thus in the ninth book of this venerable series, Aurelio Zen is sent off to do battle with yet another powerful and corrupt Italian institution. What makes the Aurelio Zen series so pleasurable is that the traditional Anglo American mystery genre is undermined by a Latin sensibility. In the Anglo American mystery, the world is a logical and ultimately benign place. With hard work and intuition, the Anglo American detective can resolve the mystery. The guilty are punished and harmony and balance are restored. Aurelio Zen's world operates on different principles. In Zen's Italy, the powerful are corrupt and masterful in their use of violence and intimidation. Nothing is transparent. Motives are obscure and conspiracies are the preferred mediums for achieving objectives. Zen is a good man but he will do whatever it takes to survive in this harsh and unforgiving environemnt.For those interested in the Latin sensibility, check out the Scicilian mystery writer Leonardo Sciascia or the Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo. For the French take on this Latin sensibility, there is the master Goerges Simenon's Inspector Maigret. The Columbian writer Alvaro Mutis puts a magical realism spin on this sensibility.