{"product_id":"medusa-isbn-9781400076086","title":"Medusa","description":"After a decomposed body is discovered in an abandoned military tunnel, Inspector Aurelio Zen travels north to the Italian Alps to investigate. At first glance, the death appears to have been an accident. But when Zen takes a closer look, a mysterious tattoo begins to tell a much more sinister tale, especially after the body is snatched from the morgue.  As Zen races to discover the inner workings of a clandestine military organization named Medusa, he is reminded of just how lethal Italian history can be. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMedusa\u003c\/b\u003e takes us on an exploration of the dark history of post-war Italy and a modern-day sightseeing tour of what Zen calls \u003ci\u003eItalia Lite\u003c\/i\u003e. In the urbane and pragmatic Zen, world-class mystery novelist Michael Dibdin has given us a detective unlike any other. And in this latest installment of this critically acclaimed series, we are treated to a mystery that drips with intrigue and a thriller so satisfying the pages cannot be turned fast enough.“Gripping.... The tangle of Italia \u003ci\u003ecriminale\u003c\/i\u003e and Italia lite is irresistible; and well worth not resisting.” —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A suspenseful, complex mystery that is beautifully written and filled with humor, rich insight and deep feeling.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Denver Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dibdin’s Italy-based Aurelio Zen tales are among the best in the mystery genreÉ. Dibdin’s a special writer, onw who is a joy to read.”  --\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A wholly pleasing and satisfying novel.” —\u003ci\u003eSan Jose Mercury News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Exceptional. . . . If you like your thrillers impeccably written and sharpened with a political edge, Michael Dibdin's \u003cb\u003eMedusa\u003c\/b\u003e provides everything from car bombs to secret societies to military intrigue. . . . Zen is appealing human, while Dibdin's insights into Italian history, culture and landscape are packed with atmospheric detail enough to keep readers hanging on through the final page.\" --\u003ci\u003eSan Antonio Express-News \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“The mercenary and the political are . . . sinisterly intertwined. . . . Dibdin is essential reading for those who love mysteries and Italy without illusions.” --\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tense and elegantly plotted.” --\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dibdin is superb at evoking the exaggerated politics of an era of Italian turmoil and uncertainty. He has always been a master of ambiguous atmosphere, and \u003cb\u003eMedusa\u003c\/b\u003e is a splendid example of his writing and plotting excellence, as well as his social and political acuity.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Times \u003c\/i\u003e(London) \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Remarkable [in the] depth and breadth of its on-the-ground detail.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Crime writers don't get much better than Michael Dibdin. . . . His prose is characteristically supple, expressive and seductive.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Independent \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Zen is] a wonderful creation. . . . Dibdin's characters, his wit, his comedy and his loving description of the details of Italian life make this book a special treat.\" --\u003ci\u003ePittsburg Post-Gazette\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Atmospheric. . . . [A] well-crafted literary mystery.\" --\u003ci\u003eSeattle Post-Intelligencer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[Dibdin] delves so deeply into Italy's unsavory past and distinctly dodgy present it will have you choking on your grappa. . . . [His] writing is rich with the kind of texture that comes from a profound love of place. There is horror in \u003cb\u003eMedusa\u003c\/b\u003e, and some unforgettable images of fear, but beneath Dibdin's authorial harshness there lies a tender poetic sensibility. The combination is every bit as effective as Zen's unorthodox methods of detection.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Herald \u003c\/i\u003e(Glasgow)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Seductive. . . Very satisfying. . . . Plunge[s] into the murky politics of Italy in the 1970s.” --\u003ci\u003eHartford Advocate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"One of the most adrenaline-producing outings for Aurelio Zen in some time.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Express \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Dibdin’s work deserves comparison with such . . . giants as Raymond Chandler.” --\u003ci\u003eThe Oregonian\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"A detective who can slip the boundaries of genre without losing the pace of the chase, from a writer capable of giving a tangible substance to his creations' habitats and haunts.\" --\u003ci\u003eThe Independent on Sunday \u003c\/i\u003e(London)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Slick. . . . Dibdin is a master of his craft.\" --\u003ci\u003eRoanoke Times\u003c\/i\u003eMichael 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 \u003ci\u003eRatking\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, and \u003ci\u003eCabal\u003c\/i\u003e, which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He died in 2007.\u003cb\u003eI\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn oily fog had mystified the streets, sheathing the façades to either  side, estranging familiar landmarks and coating the windows with a  skein of liquid seemingly denser than water. Gabriele tried to edge  away from the fat woman in the next seat, who was phoning in a  gruesomely detailed account of some elderly relative's colostomy, but  her bulk still left him no room to open his newspaper in comfort. The  only thing he could read with any ease was the headline, which referred  to hostilities in progress in some distant land where young men were  killing and being killed. Outside, the stalled traffic snarled and  yelped. The tram rumbled along its dedicated right-of-way through the  shrouded city, the bell clanging intermittently in warning of its  approach.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'God knows!' the fat woman was saying. 'First I have to pick up the car  from Pia, assuming she's there yet, which I doubt, and after that it's  anyone's guess with this damned fog.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGabriele hugged the window, turning up the collar of his green loden  coat in a symbolic attempt to screen the woman out. He liked the fog,  the world quietened down and closed in. Glossy turned to matt, every  stridency was muted, substance leached out of the brute matter all  around. Things became notions, the brash present a vague memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy some parallel process of slippage, his innumerable childhood  memories of foggy days morphed into other memories. The fog of illness,  real or feigned, of fevers and flu and febril-ity. 'I don't feel well,  Mamma.' She was always eager to believe him, and knowing that he was  giving her pleasure alleviated whatever slight guilt he might have felt  in faking or exaggerating his symptoms. His mother liked him to be ill.  It made her feel needed. Sometimes he had even suspected that she knew  he was malingering, but forgave him, perhaps even encouraged him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFog to Gabriele also meant the feather duvet that his mother fluffed up  and floated down over him while the impotent clock insisted that he  should be in school, with its horde of bullies and swots. 'My cloud,'  he'd called it. Weightless and warm, flung back as soon as his mother  had left the room so that he could run to the bookcase and pick out a  selection of novels to take back to bed, folding the cloud over him  again. Books were another form of fog, dipping down to infiltrate and  insidiously undermine the authoritative, official version, showing it  up for the sham it was. He knew the stories were all made up, the  characters puppets, the outcome predetermined, so why did they seem  more real than reality? And why was no one else shocked by this gleeful  scandal?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tram squealed to a halt and the fat woman got up, still talking  continuously on her mobile, stepped out into the street and instantly  evaporated. The doors closed again and the tram lumbered into motion.  With the seat next to him now empty, Gabriele spread out his paper and  briefly skimmed the ongoing international and political stories. As  usual, they reminded him of his mother's dictum regarding left-over  food: 'Just add one new ingredient, and you can serve it up again and  again.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere in the old centre of the city, the fog seemed even thicker, far  more real than the transient hints of stone and glass formed and  dissolved in the opaque vistas it offered. Gabriele turned to the  Cronaca pages and read about a domestic homicide in Genoa, a drug death  in Turin, and the discovery of a corpse in an abandoned military tunnel  high up in the Dolomites.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe tram slowed to its next stop, the one before his. Gabriele closed  the paper and folded it vertically so that it formed a tight short  baton, then thrust it into his pocket and got off along with seven  other people. He waited by the stop, feigning a coughing fit, until  they had dispersed in the fog. The tram rolled away with its cargo of  light, leaving him purblind in the miasma.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe crossed to the pavement, hurrying to avoid the lights of a car which  turned out to be much closer than it had appeared, then stumbled along  in the direction the tram had taken, stopping every so often to look  and listen and to sniff the laden air. After a few blocks a café  appeared, botched together at the last moment from fragments of gleam  and glow. Gabriele paused for a moment, then pushed open the door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had never got off the tram at this stop before, and never been in  this café, so it was only natural that he should take a vivid interest  in every detail of the layout, décor, and above all the clientele. He  inspected the other customers carefully, paying particular attention to  those who entered after him. When his cappuccino and brioche arrived,  he took them to the very end of the marble bar, where it curved around  to meet the wall. From there he had a view of the entire room, and of  the only entrance. The patrons appeared to be just the sort of people  you would expect to find in that sort of café in that area of Milan at  that time in the morning: solid, professional, well-heeled and  preoccupied with their own concerns. They all stood in couples or  larger groups and none of them paid him the slightest attention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGabriele took the newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it furtively  and read through the article again. Then he tossed it into the waste  bin and wiped his hands on a paper napkin drawn from the metal  dispenser on the counter. Whoever would have thought it? After all  these years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf it hadn't been for the postcards, he himself might have succeeded in  forgetting by now. Apart from that time some Communist journalist had  come around asking about Leonardo under the pretext of wanting to buy a  book. But Gabriele had got rid of him in short order.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe series of postcards had begun the year after Gabriele had resigned  his commission. Since then, they had arrived annually wherever he  happened to be living at the time, all sent from Rome and postmarked on  the anniversary of the day Leonardo had died. Since 1993, they had  arrived at the shop. They were always the same, a cheap tourist  postcard of the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence showing Cellini's bronze  statue of Perseus holding the severed head of Medusa. Gabriele's name  and address were printed on the right-hand side of the reverse. The  space intended for the message had been left blank.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'We'd better get going,' said one of the men at the bar. 'They'll be  waiting for us.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd they would be waiting for him, thought Gabriele. If not today, then  tomorrow. If not at work, then at home. What made it worse was that he  had no idea who 'they' were. Medusa was something he had put behind him  long ago. He had even had the tattoo removed, a surgical intervention  which had cost him quite a lot of money and some minor discomfort. All  he had ever known about the organization had been the other three names  in his cell, but there must of course have been many more besides  theirs, and above all an over-arching command structure which no doubt  reached up very far indeed into the military and political hierarchy.  He had learned from an article in the press some years before that  Alberto -- now Colonel -- Guerrazzi was now someone very high up in the  secret services. Those people had unimaginable powers. If they felt  threatened, as they undoubtedly must, by the potential disclosure of  the truth behind Leonardo's death, their response was likely to be  immediate, pre-emptive, and totally unpredictable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOutside, the fog was as persistent as ever. Gabriele dodged into the  first doorway he came to and glanced back. No one emerged from the café  he had just left. He walked slowly on, head down, seemingly intent on  keeping his footing and avoiding obstacles. A chirpy clanging announced  the arrival of another tram. It ground to a halt at the stop where he  normally got off every morning. He waited until the group of commuters  had dispersed and then inspected the street carefully. The row of shops  on the ground floor of the big eighteenth-century palazzo was beginning  to open. They were mainly fashion and accessory outlets, with a  jeweller's, a hair salon and his own antiquarian bookshop interspersed.  There were very few people about, and no conspicuous watchers, but he  knew that that meant nothing. Realizing that he was rapidly becoming  conspicuous himself, he turned left and started to walk around the  block.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm no good at this, he thought. Never had been, never would be. He'd  tried hard, he really had, but do what he might he'd never been a  natural like Alberto, Nestore and poor Leonardo. 'Not really officer  material.' He'd never forgotten that comment. It had stung, even though  an officer was the last thing he'd wanted to be, if he'd been honest  with himself. And it had made no difference. Strings were pulled and  buttons pushed, and he got his commission just the same, thanks to the  influence of his father, who of course had never let him forget the  fact.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that martinet at the military academy had been right. He wasn't  officer material. He could follow orders as faithfully as a dog, but he  couldn't give them in such a way as to inspire the same unthinking  obedience in others. Or even in himself. Above all, he lacked the  initiative to improvise successfully when things got tough and there  was no superior around to tell him what to do. Such as now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat was he to do? Where was he to go? He hadn't spoken to his sister  for months, and anyway they'd find him there easily enough. The same  went for his few close friends, even supposing he could impose on them  without explanation. A trip abroad was tempting, but that meant credit  cards and identification and all the rest of it, a paper trail that  could be traced. What he really needed to do was just disappear until  the situation resolved itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe strode on with fake purposefulness through the eddying currents.  When another café loomed up, he turned into it blindly and ordered a  whisky. Gabriele rarely drank, and never before lunch. He knocked the  foul-tasting spirit back like medicine, staring at his image in the  mirror behind the bar, surprised as always by his sturdy, wiry body and  determined gaze. He always thought of himself as tiny, weedy, frail and  terminally inadequate. The joke that life had played on him was putting  such a personality inside the body of a professional welter-weight  boxer. It had saved him from getting beaten up at school, and later at  the academy, but even those victories felt hollow, won by deceit. And  the women in his life, unlike the men, had never been fooled. On the  contrary, they had loved him, those few who had lasted longer than a  week or two, precisely for the weakness they had so perceptively  diagnosed. For a while it had seemed sweet to be mothered again, but in  the end it felt like another defeat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBesides, they had all wanted to be real mothers, and he had no  intention of collaborating in a re-run of that sad sorry farce.  Hippolyte Taine, whose collected works Gabriele was currently reading,  had as usual got it ruthlessly right: 'Three weeks flirting, three  months loving, three years squabbling, thirty years making do, and then  the kids start again.' He wasn't going to let that happen to him.  Besides, it might turn out to be a boy. He'd had enough of  father-and-son routines to last him several lifetimes. The women had  sensed this and moved on, and by now Gabriele had lost all interest in  the whole business. If you didn't want children, what was the point? At  his age, sex seemed a bit disgusting and stupid, and the present  cultural obsession with it depressing and sick. According to various  comments that his mother had let slip from time to time, this was at  least one thing that he had in common with his father.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe café was starting to fill up now. It was small and rather seedy for  this area, and the clientele was very different from that at the  previous establishment: tradesmen, street sweepers, delivery drivers,  city cops, pensioners, janitors . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt took another moment before the penny dropped, and when it did  Gabriele had enough sense not to use his mobile. The café's pay phone  was at the rear of the establishment, in an overflow zone where the  tables and chairs began to peter out and be replaced by stacks of  mineral water cases, cardboard boxes of crisps, unused advertising  materials and a broken ice-cream freezer with its lid up. On the wall  nearby hung a framed black-and-white aerial photograph of a small town  somewhere in the alluvial flatlands to the south, Crema or Lodi  perhaps. It must have been taken shortly after the war, for there was  still little extensive development outside the walls, just a few  suburban villas and the railway station. After that the vast plains  spread away, faintly lined with dirt roads and dotted at intervals with  isolated cascine, the rectangular complexes of clustered farm buildings  characteristic of the Po valley.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe stood there, phone in hand, staring up at the photograph. Eventually  the dialling tone changed to an angry whine. Gabriele hung up, fed in a  coin and redialled. He knew what to do now, and it could be done.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Pronto.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Fulvio, it's Gabriele Passarini.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Salve, dottore.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Listen, you remember that time, years ago, when I locked myself out of  the shop?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA brief laugh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It's happened again?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It's happened again. And I want you to do the same thing you did last  time. Do you understand?'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'You mean go down to . . .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Yes, yes! Exactly what you did last time. I'll be waiting.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was a pause. When Fulvio finally spoke, he sounded flustered,  perhaps by the intensity in Gabriele's voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Very well, dottore. I'm up to my ears with work this morning, but . .  .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'I'll make it worth your while.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe hung up, wiped his palms on his coat and returned to the bar, where  he ordered and downed a coffee and then paid his bill before leaving  the café.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFulvio was waiting for him just inside the doorway. The janitor was a  lean, stooping man whose perpetual expression of amazement, due to the  loss of his eyebrows in an industrial accident, gave him a slightly  gormless air. In fact, Fulvio was the intermediary, when not the  instigator, behind everything that happened in the building. Gabriele  had recognized this early on, and had always taken good care to ensure  that Fulvio was aware that he both understood and appreciated the  situation: a panettone from one of the city's best pastry shops every  Christmas, some chocolates for his wife on her birthday, the occasional  but satisfyingly large tip now and again.","brand":"Vintage Crime\/Black Lizard","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301667295461,"sku":"NP9781400076086","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400076086.jpg?v=1767732510","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/medusa-isbn-9781400076086","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}