Böcker av Michael Dibdin

348 393 9028: MEDUSA. After the heated pool, the air was distinctly cool, even down here in the sheltered terraces above lake Lugano. He keyed in the number, then turned to face the hillside behind the villa. The land rose precipitously, the contours marked by the looping line of Via Totone and its accompanying homes and gardens. There was no one in sight.When a group of Austrian cavers in the Italian Alps come across human remains at the bottom of a deep shaft, everyone assumes the death was accidental - until the still unidentified body is stolen from the morgue and the Defence Ministry puts a news blackout on the case. The whole affair has the whiff of political intrigue.The search for the truth leads Zen back into the murky history of post-war Italy and obscure corners of modern-day society to uncover the truth about a crime that everyone thought was as dead and buried as the victim.If you enjoyed the Inspector Zen Mystery series you may also like The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.

Turning to the window, Zen eyed his spectral other, so smugly solid and substantial. He felt as if he were the reflection and that image the original. 'A Shadow of his former self,' as the stock phrase went. A hopeless invalid. A sad case.When the corpse of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team is found both shot and stabbed, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, and fleeing an equally painful crisis in his personal life, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be a routine and relatively undemanding assignment.But soon a world-famous university professor is shot with the same gun, and the case threatens to spin out of control...

'As you may have gathered, there was a suicide in St Peter's this afternoon. Someone threw himself off the gallery inside the dome. Such incidents are quite common, and do not normally require the attention of this department. In the present instance, however, the victim was not some jilted maidservant or ruined shopkeeper, but Prince Ludovico Ruspanti.'When, one dark night in November, Prince Ludovico Ruspanti fell a hundred and fifty feet to his death in the chapel at St Peter's, Rome, there were a number of questions to be answered. Did he fall or was he pushed? Inspector Aurelio Zen finds that getting the answers isn't easy, as witness after witness is mysteriously silenced - by violent death. To crack the secrets of the Vatican, Zen must penetrate the most secret place of all: the Cabal.If you enjoyed the Inspector Zen Mystery series you may also like The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.

There was something about the Burolo case which was different any other he had ever been involved in. He had known cases which obsessed him professionally, taking over his life until he was unable to sleep properly or to think about anything else, but this was even more disturbing.Inspector Zen has a problem: an impossible murder, recorded on the closed-circuit video of Oscar Burolo's top-security Sardinian fortress. As he gets to work, he is once again plunged into a menacing and violent world where his own life is soon at risk.If you enjoyed the Inspector Zen Mystery series you may also like The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.

Perugia, he thought. Chocolates, Etruscans, that fat painter, radios and gramophones, the University for Foreigners, sportswear. 'Umbria, the green heart of Italy', the tourist advertisements said. What did that make Latium, he had wondered, the bilious liver?Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen has crossed swords with the establishment before - and lost. But from the depths of a mundane desk job in Rome he is unexpectedly transferred to Perugia to take over an explosive kidnapping case involving one of Italy's most powerful families.If you enjoyed the Inspector Zen Mystery series, you may also like The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.

The dead man followed the track until it rose above the last remaining trees and ceased to be a rough line of beaten earth and scruffy grass, to become a stony ramp hewn out of the cliff face and deeply rutted by the abrasive force of ancient iron-rimmed cart wheels. By now il morto was clearly suffering, but he struggled on, pausing frequently to gasp for breath before tackling another stretch of the scorched rock on which the soles of his feet left bloody footprints.Aurelio Zen's final case brings him to remote town of Calabria, at the toe of Italy's boot, on what is supposed to be a routine assignment: the death of a scout for an American film company. But the case is complicated by a group of dangerous strangers who have arrived to uncover another local mystery - buried treasure - and who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. The case rapidly spirals out of control, and Zen must penetrate the code of silence in the tight-knit community in order to solve the crime.If you enjoyed the Inspector Zen Mystery series you may also like The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.

At this point there is a welcome touch of comedy as the man's feet appear above the tail-gate of the garbage truck. Clad in highly polished brogues and red-and-black chequered socks below which a length of bare white leg is just visible, they proceed to execute a furious little dance, jerking this way and that like puppets at a Punch and Judy show - possibly a knowing allusion to the commedia dell'arte, which of course originated in this city.Inspector Zen has been posted to Naples in disgrace, where he is asked to oversee the clean-up of the city's corrupt authorities. Like the rest of Italy, Naples is concerned about its image and is trying to reform itself. Zen, however, finds that someone else is already at work. Corrupt politicians, shady businessmen and eminent members of the Italian Mafia are disappearing off the streets at an alarming rate and Zen must find out who is behind the murders.

What is it that binds together a series of violent murders across America and the long-lost Secret of the Templars?The killings always take place in the home, usually in broad daylight, in towns and cities all over America.

Word count 9,680

Karen and I on the sofa, Karen and I in the back seat of the BMW, Karen and I at the river, up the alley, down the garden, round the corner, in the pub. Our movements are furtive, frantic and compulsive. Our pleasures are brief and incomplete. Our frustrations are enormous. Because if you look closely at the background of every scene, you'll see Dennis.Dennis and Karen lead a pleasant life in North Oxford until the day one of their dinner guests seduces Karen in the kitchen, setting in motion a chain of events which will destroy the thin veneer of their respectability and lead to ruthless murder.Dirty Tricks is a brilliant thriller set in contemporary Oxford: a gripping story of sex, ambition and violence with a wickedly humorous twist.If you enjoyed Dirty Tricks you may also like A Rich Full Death, another crime novel by Michael Dibdin.