{"id":920,"date":"2009-01-19T22:30:17","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T03:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=920"},"modified":"2021-05-30T21:39:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T01:39:43","slug":"dead-lagoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/920","title":{"rendered":"Dead Lagoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dead Lagoon<\/em> (1994) Michael Dibdbin<\/a><\/p>\n

\"dead_lagoon\"<\/a>Aurelio Zen is a Criminalpol police officer who has wrangled his way to Venice in search of a case so he can cover his real pretext for being in Venice–to reopen a missing persons file because the family is offering him large sums of money for closure in the case. <\/p>\n

Unfortunately for him, both the case he takes on “officially” and the case he is unofficially investigating turn ugly quickly, and Zen finds himself in hot water not only at the Questura but with his old friends in the city.<\/p>\n

First things first, this is the fourth book in the series, so it’s possible I’m missing some important background. Why do I mention this? Because as far as I could tell, in Dead Lagoon<\/em> Aurelio Zen is an unmitigated asshole and has absolutely no redeeming qualities.<\/p>\n

He cheats on his girlfriend–the girlfriend he has been pushing to move in with him–with a married woman. He’s in Venice working on a case, only because finding what happened to the missing man will being him a year’s pay for only a week’s work–work that he intends to do only a half-assed job on. And he indirectly causes the deaths of two people and after his initial shock, doesn’t seem much upset about the fact.<\/p>\n

What on earth do people see in this guy that they want to read more books about him? I kept waiting for redeeming qualities to appear, and they never did.<\/p>\n

As far as the atmosphere, the book is set in Venice, and I have to say I’ve gotten a much better sense of the city from other books I’ve read set in Venice. There’s ambiance, but it feels as if everyone Zen meets is either corrupt or insane, which doesn’t give one any better of an impression of the city than Zen made upon me.<\/p>\n

We do learn the answers to the problems Zen has been researching, but they are simply answers–there is no justice.<\/p>\n

All in all I found this to be a thoroughly depressing book with a thoroughly unlikable protagonist. The only reason I kept reading was that I wanted to know what happened, and I wanted to see if I could figure out why people liked Aurelio Zen. I got an unsatisfactory answer to the first question, but remain boggled about the second.
\nRating: 4\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dead Lagoon (1994) Michael Dibdbin Aurelio Zen is a Criminalpol police officer who has wrangled his way to Venice in search of a case so he can cover his real pretext for being in Venice–to reopen a missing persons file because the family is offering him large sums of money for closure in the case. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,8,291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disliked-or-abandoned","category-mystery","category-paper"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-eQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20171,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/20171","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":0},"title":"Give Unto Others","author":"Michelle","date":"August 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Give Unto Others (2022) Donna Leon (Commissario Brunetti) This is the 31st Brunetti book. It seems weird this series has been running for 30 years. Partially because at some point she stopped aging Brunetti and his family, so his eldest has been on the cusp of adulthood for more than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Give-Unto-Others.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3912,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/3912","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":1},"title":"Death at La Fenice","author":"Michelle","date":"July 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon (A Commissario Brunetti Mystery) When I saw this on sale as an eBook deal of the day on Amazon, I snatched it up. I am slowly coming to prefer eBooks to paper books, and am always glad to get favorites in electronic format.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Death-at-La-Fenice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":925,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/925","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":2},"title":"Death of an Englishman","author":"Michelle","date":"January 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Death of an Englishman (1981) Magdalen Nabb A call comes into the station and is answered by Carabiniere Bacci. Instead of awakening Marshal Guarnaccia who is gravely ill with the flu, Bacci instead goes to the scene and discovers a dead Englishman and a case that gets more complicated as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mystery"","block_context":{"text":"Mystery","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/mystery"},"img":{"alt_text":"death_of_an_englishman","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/death_of_an_englishman.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/687","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":3},"title":"Doctored Evidence","author":"Michelle","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Doctored Evidence (2004) Donna Leon A querulous old woman is killed in her apartment, and suspicion automatically falls upon the maid. Scarpa closes the case, but when Brunetti comes back into town, new evidence--that Scarpa wants to dismiss unheard--comes to light. This book is not just about discovering who killed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Doctored-Evidence-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12595,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/12595","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":4},"title":"Trace Elements","author":"Michelle","date":"March 6, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Trace Elements (2020) Donna Leon (Commissario Guido Brunetti) Book 29 of the Commissario Guido Brunetti series. Brunetti and Griffoni go to a hospice because a dying woman wants to talk to them. Her husband recently was killed in a car accident, and she seems to be telling them that he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7.5\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7.5\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-5-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"Trace Elements","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Trace-Elements-682x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":517,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/517","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":5},"title":"Death at La Fenice","author":"Michelle","date":"February 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Death at La Fenice (1992) Donna Leon Guido Brunetti is vice-commissario of police in the Venice, and a good detective as well. When a world famous maestro is found dead in his dressing room, from what seems to be cyanide poisoning, Guido is immediately pressured to find the killer, lest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Death-at-La-Fenice.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}