Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery

Blood Rain: An Aurelio Zen Mystery

Aurelio Zen—cynical and tough, yet worn down from years of law enforcement—has just been given the worst assignment he could imagine. He has been sent to the heart of hostile territory: Sicily, the ancient, beautiful island where blood has been known to flow like wine, and the distinction between the police and the criminals is a fine one. Even worse, he has been sent to spy on the elite anti-Mafia squad.The only thing that makes the job palatable—and takes his mind off routine details like the rotting body found in a remote train car—is that Zen's adopted daughter, Carla, is also in town. But life becomes precarious for Carla when she stumbles upon some information she'd be better off not knowing and befriends a local magistrate on the Mafia's most wanted list. What ensues is a breakneck plot of amazing complexity that culminates in a stunning finale. Blood Rain , emotionally gripping and defiantly original, is surely one of Dibdin's finest works. ?As bracing as grappa.... Michael Dibdin is a fine novelist and an excellent mystery writer. USA Today sophical, and world-weary detective Aurelio Zen returns in Michael Dibdin's latest foray into the maze of Italian criminal and political entanglements. This time Zen finds himself with an assignment he'd rather have avoided. After years of, shall we say, flirting with the enemy, he finds himself in the heart of hostile territory: Sicily, the ancient, beautiful island where blood has been known to flow like wine, if not water, and the distinction between the police and the criminals is a fine one. And when Zen's adopted daughter, Carla, comes across some information that certain people wish to remain secret and develops a friendship with a magistrate on the Mafia's most wanted list, the plot develops into one of Dibdin's most enthralling inventions. Tough, philosophical, and world-weary detective Aurelio Zen returns in Michael Dibdin's latest foray into the maze of Italian criminal and political entanglements. This time Zen finds himself with an assignment he'd rather have avoided. After years of, shall we say, flirting with the enemy, he finds himself in the heart of hostile territory: Sicily, the ancient, beautiful island where blood has been known to flow like wine, if not water, and the distinction between the police and the criminals is a fine one. And when Zen's adopted daughter, Carla, comes across some information that certain people wish to remain secret and develops a friendship with a magistrate on the Mafia's most wanted list, the plot develops into one of Dibdin's most enthralling inventions. Michael Dibdin was born in England and raised in Northern Ireland. He attended Sussex University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He spent five years in Perugia, Italy, where he taught English at the local university. He went on to live in Oxford, England and Seattle, Washington. He was the author of eighteen novels, eleven of them in the popular Aurelio Zen series, including Ratking , which won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, and Cabal , which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He died in 2007. Chapter One What it all seemed to come down to, in those early days when everything looked as clear as the sea at sunrise, was the question of exactly where, how and when the train had been 'made up'. It was only much later that Aurelio Zen came to realize that the train had been made up in a quite different sense, that it had never really existed in the first place.At the time, the issues had seemed as solid as the train itself: a set of fourteen freight wagons currently quarantined on a siding in the complex of tracks surrounding the engine sheds at Piazza delle Americhe, on the coast to the north of central Catania. The site where the body had been found was within the territory of the provincia di Catania , and hence under the jurisdiction of the authorities of that city. So far, so good. From a bureaucratic point of view, however, the crucial factor was where and when the crime — if indeed it was a crime — had occurred. As all those concerned were soon to learn, none of these points was susceptible of a quick or easy answer.Even assuming that the records provided by the State Railway authorities had been complete and credible, and no one in his right mind would have been prepared to make such an assumption, only a few unequivocal facts emerged. The first was that the train had originally left Palermo at 2.47 p.m. on 23 July. At this point it consisted of seven wagons, three of them empties commencing a long journey back to their depot in Catania, the others loaded with an assortment of goods ranging from empty wine bottles to drums of fertilizer. It was not clear whether or not the 'death chamber', as it was later dubbed by the media, had been one of these.Having trundled along the north coast as far as the junction of Castello, the train turned inland, following a r