A Rich Full Death
Authors: Michael Dibdin
A Rich Full Death
Michael Dibdin
Vintage (1986)
Tags: Historical, Mystery
Historicalttt Mysteryttt
Florence,1855. "The English are dying too much," the city's police chief observes. And members of the foreign
community in this quaint Italian backwater, both English and American, are indeed dying at an alarming rate and in an extraordinary variety of ingenious and horrible ways.
With the local authorities out of their depth, the distinguished resident Robert Browning launches his own private investigation, aided and abetted by an expatriot Robert Booth. Unfortunately, their amateur sleuthing is hampered by the fact that each of their suspects becomes the next victim in a series of murders orchestrated by a killer with a taste for poetic justice. A Rich Full Death features characters both historical and imaginary, ranging from an enticing servant girl to Mr. Browning's consumptive, world-famous wife, Elizabeth Barrett, in a tale lush with period detail, intricately plotted, and with a truly astonishing final twist.
From Publishers Weekly
The cast of Dibdin's mid-19th-century literary puzzler features a Beatrice, an Isabel, an Elizabeth and even an Edith, but its true heroine is Florence, the Italian city where the twisting tale plays out. In letters to an old friend in America, expat Robert Booth narrates his adventures in Florence with other American and English exiles, including Robert Browning and his invalid wife, Elizabeth Barrett, and Isabel Allen and her wealthy husband. Booth, whose dreams of literary fame have faded as surely as his once passionate love for Isabel, teams up with Browning to investigate a series of six cryptic murders that occur in the expat community, turning the "paradise of exiles" into a miniature hell. As their pursuit of the killer leads them through a maze of social and political circles, the two men's relationship shifts, for they discover that they are both attracted to the same Italian servant. Dibdin's lively dialogue and period prose complement his vigorous characters. The novel relies heavily on allusions to Dante's Inferno, and, though it lacks hair-raising suspense, its many subtle clues and plot reversals are engrossing. The author of the Aurelio Zen mysteries displays a sure-handed command of literature, history and humor in this intricate, literate period piece. Author tour. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Dibdin, author of the "Aurelio Zen" series, re-creates 1855 Florence here, as a skulking but hardly disinterested witness sees Robert Browning beside a newly hanged woman. Historical characters mix with fictional ones in another of Dibdin's evocative mysteries. First-rate.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A Rich Full Death
Michael Dibdin
Vintage (1986)
Tags: Historical, Mystery
Historicalttt Mysteryttt
Florence,1855. "The English are dying too much," the city's police chief observes. And members of the foreign
community in this quaint Italian backwater, both English and American, are indeed dying at an alarming rate and in an extraordinary variety of ingenious and horrible ways.
With the local authorities out of their depth, the distinguished resident Robert Browning launches his own private investigation, aided and abetted by an expatriot Robert Booth. Unfortunately, their amateur sleuthing is hampered by the fact that each of their suspects becomes the next victim in a series of murders orchestrated by a killer with a taste for poetic justice. A Rich Full Death features characters both historical and imaginary, ranging from an enticing servant girl to Mr. Browning's consumptive, world-famous wife, Elizabeth Barrett, in a tale lush with period detail, intricately plotted, and with a truly astonishing final twist.
From Publishers Weekly
The cast of Dibdin's mid-19th-century literary puzzler features a Beatrice, an Isabel, an Elizabeth and even an Edith, but its true heroine is Florence, the Italian city where the twisting tale plays out. In letters to an old friend in America, expat Robert Booth narrates his adventures in Florence with other American and English exiles, including Robert Browning and his invalid wife, Elizabeth Barrett, and Isabel Allen and her wealthy husband. Booth, whose dreams of literary fame have faded as surely as his once passionate love for Isabel, teams up with Browning to investigate a series of six cryptic murders that occur in the expat community, turning the "paradise of exiles" into a miniature hell. As their pursuit of the killer leads them through a maze of social and political circles, the two men's relationship shifts, for they discover that they are both attracted to the same Italian servant. Dibdin's lively dialogue and period prose complement his vigorous characters. The novel relies heavily on allusions to Dante's Inferno, and, though it lacks hair-raising suspense, its many subtle clues and plot reversals are engrossing. The author of the Aurelio Zen mysteries displays a sure-handed command of literature, history and humor in this intricate, literate period piece. Author tour. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Dibdin, author of the "Aurelio Zen" series, re-creates 1855 Florence here, as a skulking but hardly disinterested witness sees Robert Browning beside a newly hanged woman. Historical characters mix with fictional ones in another of Dibdin's evocative mysteries. First-rate.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Michael Dibdin
A RICH FULL DEATH
Michael Dibdin is the author of many novels, including the Aurelio Zen mysteries
Dead Lagoon
and
Ratking
, which won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award, as well as
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
. His latest novel,
A Long Finish
, is available from Pantheon Books.
BOOKS BY
Michael Dibdin
A Long Finish
Così Fan Tutti
Dark Specter
Dead Lagoon
The Dying of the Light
Cabal
Vendetta
Dirty Tricks
The Tryst
Ratking
A Rich Full Death
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
To Sibyl
‘The poem’s origin probably lies in … a painting in the Pitti Palace in Florence, then supposed to be del Sarto’s portrait of himself and his wife; it is now known to be two portraits joined together, is no longer attributed to del Sarto, is not thought to depict the painter or his wife, and has been relegated to storage.’
Editor’s note to Browning’s
‘Andrea del Sarto’ (Yale edition)
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
Up at a Villa—Down in the City
BOOK ONE