The recent BBC adaption of novels featuring the improbably named Italian detective Aurelio Zen makes the name of the late Michael Dibdin topical again.

Not one to miss an opportunity, here is a review of a non-Zen novel set in England which I read a while back.

Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin (1991)

There is precious little gallantry in Dibdin’s fictional world. His male lead (never named) is a shiftless shit of the first order; but he is good company. The action takes place among Oxford’s middlebrow executive set where our ‘hero’ is initially  a fish out of water. Continue reading →