Back To Bologna

Back To Bologna winner of the gold dagger award by Michael
Dibdin In the latest installment in his critically
acclaimed Italian mystery series Michael Didbin sends
Aurelio Zen to Italy’s culinary capital Bologna where he
discovers that some cases are not quite what they appear
to be. When the corpse of the shady Bologna industrialist
who owns the local football team is found both shot and
stabbed with a Parmesan knife Aurelio Zen is summoned to
oversee the investigation. Anxious for a break from his
girlfriend who attributes Zen’s slow recovery from routine
surgery to hypochondria he is only too happy to take on
what first appears to be an undemanding assignment. The
case quickly spins out of control becoming entangled with
the fates of a student semiotics a mysterious immigrant
claiming to be royalty and Bologna’s most incompetent
private detective. Meanwhile a prominent postmodern
academic accuses Italy’s leading celebrity chef of being a
fraud. Back to Bologna is dazzlingly plotted and delivers
both comic and serious insights into the realities of
today’s Italy.