This is the second in the 'Inspector Zen' series. Zen is a Venetian policeman currently based in Rome. He has gained a reputation as a bent cop as a result of a previous case which was successfully concluded after false evidence was planted by colleagues. Though he actually knew nothing about it at the time, he does nothing to dispel the impression created, perhaps through disillusionment. He is summoned by a powerful political faction and sent to Sardinia to sort out a case for them. He must get a particular suspect freed by setting up someone else. If he doesn't comply, things will be unpleasant for him; if he does, his career will benefit. Zen does take on the case, trying to work out how to fulfil his mission without sending an innocent person down for the crime.

Unlike others who have reviewed this, I find the plot a bit unsatisfying. I prefer one where you get to know the suspects and other protagopnists more intimately than you do here. More interesting is the character of Zen; there is a feeling that there is much more to be revealed about him, and that he will develop as the series goes on. Although the crime is solved, loose ends are left as regards his love life, job and home situation (he lives with his elderly mother), and this makes you want to read on.

Vendetta
Michael Dibdin

Second in the Aurelio Zen series.

Zen is in Rome, working on a report of the bizarre murder of a wealthy Italian construction firm owner who, along with his wife and two guests were gunned down in his supposedly impregnable Sardinian villa. A suspect has been arrested; Zen’s job is to write a summary report.

But there are political ramifications to the suspect’s arrest. Zen receives a summons to the headquarters of a party involved in the current ruling coalition and very discreetly given a choice: “fix” it so that the current suspect is freed and another suspect stands trial or be transferred to some remote, dangerous district in Sardinia or Sicily where the death of one more police official will hardly be noticed. To up the anxiety level, Zen is positive he is being followed; after his apartment is broken into, he’s convinced his life is in danger.

The plotting of this story is excellent, and would be the only reason to read the book. Zen himself I found to be an unreal character, wooden, never believable. Dibdin’s writing is too much of the expositionary type--page after page of Zen’s reactions and suppositions, short on action until the last third of the book. The section on Sardinia was faintly interesting, but almost nothing about Rome was; Dibdin fails to make Rome come alive in the way Leon has done with Venice, Nabb with Florence and Camilleri has done with Sicily. For all the “realism” or authenticity of setting, Dibdin could very well have taken a Google map of Rome, a guide book, and plotted his story from Newark, New Jersey.

The structure of the book is good,and there is a nice twist at the end. But Zen, his colleagues, and his villains are dull and uninteresting.

Not worth the trouble unless you’re desperately bored with nothing else to read. ( )

In the second installment of the Aurelio Zen series, Dibdin sends police detective Zen off to Sardinia to solve the seemingly impossible murder of a wealthy Oscar Burulo, his wife and two dinner companions in his ultra-secure mansion in the mountains of Sardinia. As it turns out, Burulo liked to videotape his dinner parties, so the shooting of the victims is recorded, but the assailant stays out of view. Burulo had recently run over and killed a young member of a Sardinian crime family to get out of an attempted kidnapping. But rich men collect enemies and maybe the killer is one of the guests who departed immediately before the shootings. Or could it be one of the grounds crew at the billionaire's complex?

Meanwhile, Zen is working on a new love interest and enjoying his new found status after his `success' related in Ratking, the first book in the Zen story. This being Italy, however, his colleagues assume, with some justification, that his promotion is a payoff for his cooperation with a seriously bent family scion in that tale. Zen did not really do what his benefactor thinks he did to earn this reward, but Zen is not going to correct that misimpression.

As a result of his new reputation, another leader of a criminal enterprise dispatches Zen to Sardinia to `solve' the murder, i.e. frame their chosen victim. Zen travels to the island under the guise of being a Swiss real estate agent looking to buy a large mansion. Zen is trying to figure out a way to avoid framing an innocent man while putting in enough effort to satisfy the crime boss. The action starts there.

Vendetta continues the development of Zen as a fully dimensional character with satisfying intrigue and action and a full dose of cynicism. A significant fault, however, is the unexplained motivation for one of the key actor's in the book's climax. (Perhaps I missed it.) ( )

Although an ok story, I feel like that it is overrated. ( )

2nd in the Aurelio Zen series by this author; in this installment, we find our hero called upon by a group of high-ranking powerholders who want him to find someone else to charge for the brutal murder of one
Oscar Burolo, his wife and 2 guests at his luxury villa on the island of Sardinia. A man had been charged who had actually been at the villa just prior to the murder with his wife; they left, the murders occurred & the guy had no alibi, having separated from his wife a little later saying he had forgotten some important documents at Burolo's home, and was arrested for the crime. Having friends in high places, the group goes to Zen, who has no choice but to comply or risk either his life or his career. Not only that, but the group has a score to settle: when Burolo was killed, they lost a large-sized cash flow funneled through from his less than up-front business dealings. Zen goes to Sardinia where he realizes that he himself is the object of a vendetta and is forced to run for his life.

I absolutely love this character and am looking forward to the rest of the series.

If you're looking for the standard off-the-shelf mystery, you won't find it here; but if you don't mind taking your time & reading something a little different, you'll enjoy this one. I would definitely begin with #1; Zen's character in that one is a bit underdeveloped, but we learn a little more about our hero as the second one progresses. ( )