Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Ratking


by Michael Dibdin

I must have purchased this book back in the 1980s, started to read it an lost interest for some reason.  But I was in the mood for a mystery the other day, and found this in the bathtub reading pile.  (There is nothing so decadently pleasurable as reading a good book while soaking in a nice hot tub.  At least in the winter.)

The book was much more interesting the second time around.  It is the first of what became a series of mystery novels by Dibdin about an Italian policeman, Aurelio Zen.  But, although the mystery is well enough plotted and written, it is the descriptions of Italian society circa the early 1980s that are fascinating.  It was a time when kidnapping was rampant, and left wing radicals were active terrorists. Corruption was deeply entrenched and the norm in all dealings.

I'm old enough to remember those days, and to see the parallels to current corrupt societies in Latin America and Iraq (especially wrt the kidnapping). I also wonder how much has really changed in Italy, when a man can control all the major media buy himself the post of prime minister and immunity from prosecution.

The story itself is interesting enough–political pressure has been brought to bear upon the police, and Zen, a disgraced detective, is sent to Perugia to investigate a kidnapping.  A wealthy industrialist has been missing for a long time, and his good friend suspects family complicity in the crime.

As for the title, the ratking is a metaphor not just for the dysfunctional family at the core of the story, but for individuals getting by within a corrupt society.

What's the Point?




I thought it might be interesting to keep track of what I read for a year.  I'm trying to read more books this year, and spend a bit less of my reading time on the internet and magazines.  We'll see how that turns out. I plan to blog only about books, but if something rally interesting were to come up elsewhere, I might be tempted to write about it, too.

And, since the books are piled three feet high in my upstairs hallway, it's time to make a dent in my backlog of books.