Dibdin, Michael. A Long Finish. Pantheon Books, 1998.
Reason read: Dibdin was born in March. Read in his honor.
Do you like wine or truffles? This is a murder mystery centered around both delicacies in Alba, a small hill town in northern Italy. Aurelio Zen has been sent from the big city of Rome to aid in an unusual case. Instead of finding the real killer, he is to clear the name of a winemaker accused of (and jailed for) killing his father. Only when Zen gets to Alba, the murder case of Also Vincenzo is “solved” without his contribution or nosey interference. Strange. When the authorities try to rush him out of town he grows even more suspicious and decides to stick around. The town intrigues him and he is no hurry to leave. It becomes even more mysterious when subsequently two more people die. One by suicide and one by accident…or so it seems.
The more I read about Zen the more I remembered his character from Cosi Fan Tutti. He is still a very complicated man. He is prone to sleepwalking to the point of serious injury. When he starts receiving strange calls he doesn’t know about phone devices that can disguise voices. As a police officer, this detail surprised me. He has the ability to become unglued at a moment’s notice. An act or truth, I could not tell. He might have fathered a child out of wedlock. He doesn’t always have the best intentions but other times he will surprise you.
What exactly is a “powerful but lazy wind” (p 155)?
Author fact: Dibdin passed away in 2007.
Book trivia: Long Finish is the sixth book in the Aurelio Zen series.
Playlist: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao, Italia!” (p 46).