 First edition | |
| Author | Michael Dibdin |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Aurelio Zen series, #8 |
| Genre | Crime, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | April 1, 2002 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, Paperback) |
| Pages | 256pp (hardback) 192pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-571-21032-5 |
| OCLC | 48194229 |
| Preceded by | Blood Rain |
| Followed by | Medusa |
And Then You Die is a 2002 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the eighth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series.
Aurelio Zen is back, but nobody's supposed to know it...After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, Zen is lying low under a false name at a beach resort on the Tuscan coast, waiting to testify in an imminent high profile Mafia trial. He has clear instructions: to sit back and enjoy the classic Italian beach holiday. But Zen is getting restless, despite a developing romance with a mysterious and alluring occupant of a nearby sunbed, as an alarming number of people seem to be dropping dead around him. Abruptly, the pleasant monotony of beach life is cut short as the word comes and he finds himself transported to a remote and strange world far from home...where he belatedly comes to appreciate both the reach of those who want him dead and that the corpses were all supposed to be his. [1] [2] [3]
As ever in the Zen chronicles, the real story turns out to be much more complex. Confronted by an unexpected and unconsidered adversary, he resolves the immediate situation at the cost of involving his new girlfriend in a plot to dispose of an inconvenient corpse.
It appears, Michael Dibdin's few years' sojourn in Italy reflects in his book as he writes about Italian culture, regions, food, and people. The country, in fact, becomes a part of the story. The shortness of the book compared to his other Zen thrillers makes it look like a novella. The eighth book in Dibdin's Aurelio Zen series, the short novel promises to be a carefully crafted and witty chronicle of the Venice-born detective's latest adventures, an equally rewarding sequel to the last Zen thriller, the Blood Rain. [4]
Mario Francis Puzo was an American author and screenwriter. He wrote crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the first film in 1972 and for Part II in 1974. Puzo also wrote the original screenplay for the 1978 Superman film and its 1980 sequel. His final novel, The Family, was released posthumously in 2001.
Richard Stanley Francis was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer whose novels centre on horse racing in England.
Michael Dibdin was a British crime fiction writer, best known for inventing Aurelio Zen, the principal character in 11 crime novels set in Italy.
Rufus Frederik Sewell is a British actor. In film, he has appeared in Carrington (1995), Hamlet (1996), Dangerous Beauty (1998), Dark City (1998), A Knight's Tale (2001), The Legend of Zorro (2005), The Illusionist (2006), Amazing Grace (2006), The Holiday (2006), The Tourist (2010), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), Judy (2019), The Father (2020), and Old (2021).
Douglas Jerome Preston is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child, he has also written six solo novels, including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie, which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines.
Frederic Lindsay was a Scottish crime writer, who was born in Glasgow and lived in Edinburgh. He was a full-time writer from 1979 and previously worked as a lecturer, teacher and library assistant. He was active in a number of literary organisations including the Society of Authors, International PEN and the Scottish Arts Council. In addition to novels he also wrote for TV, radio and the theatre. Two of his novels have been made into films.
Ratking is a 1988 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the first book in the popular Aurelio Zen series, introducing readers to the Italian police commissario's morally shady world. On publication it won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for fiction.
Vendetta is a 1990 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the second book in the popular Aurelio Zen series.
Cabal is a 1992 novel by Michael Dibdin and the third entry in the Aurelio Zen series.
Dead Lagoon is a 1994 novel by Michael Dibdin and is the fourth in his Aurelio Zen series. It was published by Faber & Faber in the UK and by Pantheon Books the following year in the US.
Cosi Fan Tutti is a novel by Michael Dibdin published by Faber and Faber in 1996. The fifth in his Aurelio Zen series, it is set in Naples. One strand of the plot plays on the storyline of the Mozart comic opera Così fan tutte; in addition, the chapter titles are all taken from the Lorenzo Da Ponte's libretto for that opera.
A Long Finish is a 1998 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the sixth entry in the Aurelio Zen series.
Blood Rain is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the seventh in the Aurelio Zen series. It was published in 1999 by Faber & Faber. In it Zen, an Italian police detective, is pitted against the Sicilian Mafia and at the end is the subject of a bombing attack for political reasons.
Medusa is a 2003 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the ninth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series about an Italian police detective.
Back to Bologna is a 2005 novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the tenth entry in the popular Aurelio Zen series.
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism notable for its emphasis on practice and experiential wisdom.
End Games is a 2007 novel by Michael Dibdin. It is the 11th and last entry in the Aurelio Zen series.
Timothy Williams is a bilingual British author who has written six novels in English featuring Commissario Piero Trotti, a character critics have referred to as a personification of modern Italy. Williams' books include Black August, which won a Crime Writers' Association award. His novels have been translated into French, Italian, Danish, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, and Japanese.
Zen is a British television series produced by Left Bank Pictures for the BBC, co-produced with WGBH Boston for its Masterpiece anthology series, Mediaset and ZDF. It stars Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino and is based on the Aurelio Zen detective novels by Michael Dibdin. The series was filmed on location in Italy, but the dialogue is in English. The series, which comprises three 90-minute films, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sunday evenings from 2 January 2011 on BBC One. The three films were based on the books Vendetta (1990), Cabal (1992) and Ratking (1988). The series was cancelled by BBC One in February 2011; BBC One controller Danny Cohen later said there were already enough male crime-fighters on TV. Left Bank, the show's producer, tried to find other broadcasters to fund another series but were unsuccessful.
Thanksgiving is a 2000 fiction novel by British author Michael Dibdin. The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2000 through Faber & Faber. The book follows a man who decides to visit his dead wife's first husband.