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Aurelio Zen: Medusa cover art

Aurelio Zen: Medusa

By: Michael Dibdin
Narrated by: Cameron Stewart
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Summary

When a group of Austrian cavers exploring a network of abandoned military tunnels 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.

And is the recent car bombing in Campione d'Italia, a tiny tax haven surrounded on all sides by Switzerland, somehow related? The whole affair has the whiff of political intrigue. That's enough to interest Aurelio Zen's boss at the Interior Ministry, who wants to know who is hiding what from who and why.

The search for the truth leads Zen back into the murky history of postwar 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.

Michael Dibdin was born in 1947. He went to school in Northern Ireland and later to Sussex University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He lived in Seattle. After completing his first novel, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, in 1978, he spent four years in Italy teaching English at the University of Perugia. His second novel, A Rich Full Death, was published in 1986. It was followed by Ratking in 1988, which won the Gold Dagger Award for the Best Crime Novel of the year and introduced us to his Italian detective - Inspector Aurelio Zen.

In 1989 The Tryst was published to great acclaim and was followed by Vendetta in 1990, the second story in the Zen series. His last novel, End Games, was published posthumously in July 2007.

©2003 Michael Dibdin (P)2014 Audible, Ltd

Critic reviews

"Crime writers don't get much better than Michael Dibdin." (Independent)
"Michael Dibdin is a Milton, it would seem, to Conan Doyle's Shakespeare." (Daily Telegraph)
"Zen is back at the height of his powers." (Scotsman)

What listeners say about Aurelio Zen: Medusa

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Excellent story

Derek dubery

Really good Zen story and a decent reading. Not sure we need Monty Python style female voices from male narrators though. Shame because it's a very good reading otherwise.

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1 person found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not at all one of the author’s best.

The plotting is as always, very well executed and the writing often lyrical. However, this is one of the few novels in the entire collection in which the politics overwhelms the plot and feels jarring and over used. And then there are the endless numbers of train journeys..
What is most jarring of all, is the actor’s voice. The attempts at rendering any foreign (not English) words are embarrassing. And when he “does” the voice of a woman it sounds like a hideous version of some pantomime bloke “doing” a woman’s voice. Terrible!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another great story.

As always MD delivers another tale of twists and turns. No disrespect to Cameron Stewart but I miss Michael Kitchen's narration. I guess that's the Audible version of who's your favourite James Bond!

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Not a typical Zen

I’ve listened to most of the Aurelio Zen stories, and this one seem to be quite highly rated. However, I found the story fairly inane and Zen seem to be very out of character. The narrator was irritating as all female characters had ridiculous falsetto voices which became incredibly irritating over the duration of the book. Definitely not my favourite.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Entertaining enough but nothing special.

The narrator should get some practice with voices … the female interpretations left me wanting to throw the iPad at the wall, just awful.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining but not great

Story follows typical Italian corruption and intrigue pattern, performance good on male voices but female characters all sound like Terry Jones playing grumbling old women in Monty Python. The denouement was signalled well in advance, but the motives and personal betrayals (as opposed to political) were sensitively drawn. Certainly helped pass a couple of long car journeys, but not one to return to.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Solid, enjoyable read.

Solid good book, with a decent flow.

Narrator reminded me of Anthony Andrew's voice, which was very good in performance and delivery.

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