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Ratking (Aurelio Zen, #1)

Michael Dibdin

Start date: February 19, 2012

Finish date: February 25, 2012

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Jan 07, 2012 Anne (Booklady) Molinarolo rated it really liked it

Shelves: thriller-suspense, good-fiction, permanent-library, thriller-mystery, winter-2011-12

My first encounter with Golden Dagger Award winning author Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen Series was watching PBS Masterpiece Mystery! one Sunday night. The onscreen Aurelio is somewhat younger and darker than the one in RATKING. Here we are introduced to this anti-hero and taste the late Dibdin’s irony and black humour in Zen’s persona that the telecast so aptly captures. As with new introductions, the reader isn’t sure of Zen. His opening scene shows us an indifferent policeman. Aurelio sits by My first encounter with Golden Dagger Award winning author Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen Series was watching PBS Masterpiece Mystery! one Sunday night. The onscreen Aurelio is somewhat younger and darker than the one in RATKING. Here we are introduced to this anti-hero and taste the late Dibdin’s irony and black humour in Zen’s persona that the telecast so aptly captures. As with new introductions, the reader isn’t sure of Zen. His opening scene shows us an indifferent policeman. Aurelio sits by idly during a robbery on a train to Rome all the while his fellow compartment companions berate him for his inaction. Rather than defending himself, he debarks and calls the local authorities to handle the situation. Is our protagonist corrupt or inept? The answer is much more complex; Aurelio Zen isn’t an active inspector because of a failed kidnapping investigation years earlier. Zen is also an outsider. He is Venetian, the wrong part of Italy for many in the police force and the Judiciary. He even has an American girlfriend!

So when political pressure is applied to a well placed Senator in Rome, Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen is the perfect choice to go to Perugia to investigate the kidnapping of prominent industrialist Ruggiero Miletti that has stalled. It soon dawns on Zen that no one expects him to succeed; that his presence is only for show. The local authorities and the communist investigating magistrate view him as an unnecessary interloper, yet one who can manipulate to achieve their own political agenda against the Miletti family. The Miletti children seem content with the absence of their father and are uncooperative with the authorities. Each has a secret as well as reasons to allow Ruggiero languish in the hands of the kidnappers. Is the answer that simple or close? Zen is determined to find out much to the chagrin of all.

The plot is a perfect mix of atmosphere and puzzle. The characters are strong, though Zen is slightly underdeveloped as any protagonist is in book 1 of a series. Perugia, Italy becomes a familiar old friend as the reader walks its streets with Aurelio. However, one weakness prevented me from rating this 1988 Golden Dagger Award winning novel 5 stars is Dibdin’s excessive use of italics in phone dialogues, thoughts, and poster board content. I found some passages confusing and had to re-read some before becoming at ease with this literary technique. And lordy mercy, how many times may an author use “dottore”? But on the whole, RATKING was a very satisfying suspenseful read!

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May 31, 2011 Heather (DeathByBook) rated it really liked it

Shelves: italy, detective, mystery, 1st-in-series, booksfree, rome, politics, family-secrets, series, family-issues

Jul 24, 2011 Vikas Datta added it

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Apr 19, 2018 Becky marked it as to-read

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