Started January 21st, finished January 27th.
I've been meaning to get into the Aurelio Zen series for a while now. Just somehow Dibdin never got to the top of the 'to read' pile. It got a meteoric rise to the top when the BBC screened adaptations of the books. I had to get to know Zen myself before I saw someone else's interpretation of him.
Zen's a Venetian living and working in Rome, sent to work on a case in Perugia. He's pretty typical of fictional detectives. There's nothing super original in the character so far. The interesting part of the book comes at looking at the day to day corruption in Italy. Something that never fails to fascinate me.
The case Zen's sent to solve is a pretty interesting tale. Kept my attention throughout and kept me interested to see who was guilty, who was innocent and who was in the grey areas.
The thing I liked most about the book is the sense of place the author gives. His descriptions of Italy are great. When a book makes me want to buy a 'plane ticket it's doing something right.
4 out of 5 pawprints. I'm looking forward to the second book in the series :-)
Total so far, Books - 5, Pages - 1,343
Next - Cross of Iron by Willie Heinrich
PS. Two more of my Twitter buddies have joined the challenge. Their blogs can be found:
Happy Reading!
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2 comments:
Interesting. I really enjoyed the Zen series on TV but haven't yet read the books. I'm a big fan of Donna Leon's Venetian detective (why weren't they made into a series?) but am quite keen on giving the Dibdin's a go. They are all being re-released in a matching set any day now so I might make a purchase...
IMHO the Zen series isn't as good as the Brunetti books. More to come in future posts :-)
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