After graduating with an English degree from Sussex University he took a Master’s Degree at the University of Alberta, Canada. Dibdin’s first published novel, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, his self-proclaimed ‘pastiche’, appeared in 1978. Shortly afterwards he moved to Italy to teach for a number of years at the University of Perugia where he was inspired to write a second novel, A Rich Full Death, set in Victorian Florence. In 1988 he wrote Ratking, the first of the famous crime series featuring the Italian detective Aurelio Zen. The novel won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award. Other books in this series include three of his best received titles, Cabal (1992), which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier, Dead Lagoon (1994), and finally End Games, published posthumously in 2007. Amongst his best-received non-Zen novels were The Dying of the Light, an Agatha Christie pastiche, and the darkly comic Dirty Tricks.
While Dibdin travelled frequently to Italy, he lived in Seattle with his wife the novelist Kathrine Beck, from where he wrote all but the first three Zen novels. The city also provided a new location for his other detective novels including Dark Spectre (1995) and Thanksgiving (2000), the story of a British journalist’s obsession with his recently dead American wife.
Michael Dibdin died in 2007 at the age of 60.
By the Same Author
THE LAST SHERLOCK HOLMES STORY
A RICH FULL DEATH
THE TRYST
DIRTY TRICKS
THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
DARK SPECTRE
THANKSGIVING
Aurelio Zen series
RATKING
VENDETTA
CABAL
DEAD LAGOON
A LONG FINISH
BLOOD RAIN
AND THEN YOU DIE
BACK TO BOLOGNA
END GAMES
Copyright
First published in 1996
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Michael Dibdin, 1996
The right of Michael Dibdin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–27411–6