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Review by Cynthia Riggs
"I just love listening to Italian," says John Viviani, an American sailor caught up in the wacky plot of Cosi Fan Tutti. "It's kind of like going to the opera. You don't understand what the hell's going on, but it all sounds really cool."
Readers will understand what's going on in Michael Dibdin's latest Aurelio Zen mystery despite its byzantine twistings and turnings. It is, indeed, really cool.
Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen, entangled in a political mess back home, has requested a transfer to Naples's port detail to escape a possibly worse posting, a "massive demotion" from his former position with Criminalpol in Rome. He convinces his Neopolitan subordinates that he has no intention of tampering with their lucrative side businesses, one of which is a whorehouse on the top floor of the police station. "Just pretend I'm not here," he tells them. His only wish, he says, is that nothing occurs which might draw unwelcome attention, which is, of course, what the book is about.
As a diversion, Zen agrees to help an attractive, wealthy widow, who wants him to get rid of her daughters' suitors. The two sisters, hopelessly in love with two "mid-management thugs," are sent off to England, and Zen recruits two supposedly Albanian prostitutes to seduce the young men, thereby proving to the sisters how faithless their lovers are.
In the meantime, a Naples gang calling itself "Clean Streets" is eliminating its enemies by slinging them into stolen trash trucks, grinding them up and compacting them. In a case of mistaken identity, Zen almost suffers the same fate.
Dibdin obviously had fun writing this book. He combines suspense and rapid pace with a remarkable sense of place, exquisitely drawn characters, and a joyful sense of farce -- stage doors bursting open and slamming shut unexpectedly, characters appearing and disappearing in various guises, and a plot that weaves everything together.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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