Ratking (novel)

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Ratking
First edition
Author	Michael Dibdin
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Aurelio Zen series, #1
Genre	Crime, Mystery novel
Publisher	Faber and Faber
Publication date	April 5, 1988
Media type	Print (Hardback, Paperback)
Pages	288 pp (hardback) 292 (paperback)
ISBN	0-571-15147-7
OCLC	17262947
Followed by	Vendetta

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.

Plot[]

Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen has crossed swords with the establishment before - and lost. From the depths of a mundane desk job in Rome counting paperclips, to which he has been exiled through political fallout from the Aldo Moro kidnapping and murder, he is unexpectedly transferred to Perugia. Unbeknownst to him, favours have been called in and words have been whispered into ears. He is to take over a kidnapping case involving one of Italy's most powerful families, with control of a business empire at stake. The missing head of the family is a big benefactor of one of Italy's main political parties and pressure is being applied. Zen contends with local power politics and troubled relationships with his mother and girlfriend, while employing some distinctly unorthodox methods and skirting the borderline of the permissible in a race to get results before he is removed from the case through political pressure.

TV adaptation[]

The novel was adapted for television by the BBC, starring Rufus Sewell in the title role. It was aired in January 2011.

External links[]

v t Novels by Michael Dibdin
Aurelio Zen series	Ratking (1988) Vendetta (1990) Cabal (1992) Dead Lagoon (1994) Cosi Fan Tutti (1996) A Long Finish (1998) Blood Rain (1999) And Then You Die (2002) Medusa (2003) Back to Bologna (2005) End Games (2007) Television series (2011)
Other novels	The Last Sherlock Holmes Story (1978) (1986) (1989) (1991) The Dying of the Light (1993) (1995) Thanksgiving (2000)

v t Gold Dagger Award
1955–1959	The Little Walls by Winston Graham (1955) The Second Man by Edward Grierson (1956) The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons (1957) Someone from the Past by Margot Bennett (1958) Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler (1959)
1960–1969	The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson (1960) by Mary Kelly (1961) by Joan Fleming (1962) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (1963) The Perfect Murder by H. R. F. Keating (1964) by Ross Macdonald (1965) A Long Way to Shiloh by Lionel Davidson (1966) by Emma Lathen (1967) by Peter Dickinson (1968) by Peter Dickinson (1969)
1970–1979	by Joan Fleming (1970) by James H. McClure (1971) The Levanter by Eric Ambler (1972) by Robert Littell (1973) by Anthony Price (1974) The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (1975) A Demon in My View by Ruth Rendell (1976) The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré (1977) The Chelsea Murders by Lionel Davidson (1978) Whip Hand by Dick Francis (1979)
1980–1989	by H. R. F. Keating (1980) Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (1981) The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey (1982) by John Hutton (1983) by B. M. Gill (1984) by Paula Gosling (1985) Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell (1986) A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine (1987) Ratking by Michael Dibdin (1988) The Wench Is Dead by Colin Dexter (1989)
1990–1999	Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill (1990) King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine (1991) The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter (1992) Cruel and Unusual by Patricia Cornwell (1993) The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters (1994) The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid (1995) Popcorn by Ben Elton (1996) Black & Blue by Ian Rankin (1997) by James Lee Burke (1998) A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson (1999)
2000–2009	Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (2000) Sidetracked by Henning Mankell (2001) The Athenian Murders by José Carlos Somoza (2002) Fox Evil by Minette Walters (2003) Blacklist by Sara Paretsky (2004) Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason (2005) Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2006) The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2007) by Frances Fyfield (2008) by William Brodrick (2009)
2010–present	by Belinda Bauer (2010) by Tom Franklin (2011) by Gene Kerrigan (2012) by Mick Herron (2013) by Wiley Cash (2014) Life or Death by Michael Robotham (2015) by Bill Beverly (2016) The Dry by Jane Harper (2017) by (2018) by M. W. Craven (2019) by Michael Robotham (2020) by Chris Whitaker (2021)

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