{"id":2179,"date":"2014-07-01T07:12:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T11:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2014-07-18T07:22:50","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T11:22:50","slug":"back-to-bologna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=2179","title":{"rendered":"**Back to Bologna"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bologna,<\/a>

(photo: wikimedia.org)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Michael Dibdin \u2013 I saw a couple of these novels about Venetian detective Aurelio Zen<\/a> turned into\u00a0PBS Mystery<\/em> presentations a few years ago, starring Rufus Sewell, and liked them a lot. But in this book<\/a>, tenth in the series, Zen was whiny, ineffectual, and fixated on his recovery from surgery.<\/p>\n

The story is peopled by egomaniacs and told with a surprising, half-comic tone, that neither aspires to nor achieves the heights of absurd human hilarity of Donald Westlake<\/a> or Carl Hiassen<\/a>\u2014which made it neither fish nor fowl. By halfway through, most of the ways Dibdin would bring together the oddly-assorted elements in this Howl\u2019s Moving Castle<\/em> of a plot were<\/p>\n

all too clear\u2014and, most unfortunately, not very credible. Enjoyed the juicy spoof of semiotics, though. As reviewer Carlo Vennarucci<\/a> said, \u201cDibdin didn\u2019t take his 10th Zen novel seriously; neither should you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h6>\n