Michael Dibdin remains one of my favorite authors even though I sometimes find his plots and characterizations frustrating. Dibdin’s was a career cut too short. Whenever I see a Dibdin book out in e-book format, I order it. I know that whatever else I find, it will be literately and beautifully written. I’ve waded happily through his wonderful Aurelio Zen series. The Zen character is uneven, but the prose is so masterful that one doesn’t care. Dibdin’s descriptive passages are second to none.So when I ordered “A Rich Full Death”, I had high expectations. This book is such a departure from everything of Dibdin’s I’ve read, that at one point I went back to make sure it was actually Dibdin I was reading. A Rich Full Death is set in Florence in the mid-eighteen hundreds and is told entirely through letters to “My Dear Prescott” from “Booth”. The “Booth” in question is pictured as a fairly young man, one living in Florence on an allowance from his father, enjoying the small enclave of ex-pat British who made Florence their home, among them and a principal character in the story, poet Robert Browning. To all lovers of Browning I say immediately, you must read this book for its fascinating re-creation of the famous poet, which often uses his own words as dialogue.A Rich Full Death is a mystery story. In the lush setting of Florence and the surrounding countryside, Dibdin takes us through Dante’s circles of hell. It is a fascinating and surprising story, with the title making sense only in the last few pages. I had to read the last chapter twice to fully understand just what Dibdin had done. It is, to say the least, a surprising ending.This is thinking man’s or woman’s book. It is redolent of the artistic and literary Italy of the times. I recommend it highly but it is not for everyone. I suspect Dibdin wrote it mainly for himself. And he probably had a grand time doing so.
This review contains spoilers though, in my opinion, it would difficult to spoil this book.Murders of English and American people are talking place in Florence at the time the poets Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning are living there.The book takes the form of letters to a friend by a Bostonian, Robert Booth. In these letters Booth describes the murders and also the fact that Browning is a better detective than the local police inspector. Booth is a consumptive currently in
Do You like book A Rich Full Death (1999)?
I've been a big fan of Michael Dibdin since reading Dirty Story about 20 years ago and this one did not disappoint. Set in mid 19th century Florence with a cosmopolitan cast of expats, the feeling of place really shines through. The story is compelling and gripping with lots of nice twists at the end as you would expect.The story revolves around an initial suicide of someone known by the main character, Robert Booth. He gets into a friendship with the poet Robert Browning and they start to investigate the circumstances as they believe it was a murder. A second killing follows and the story spirals from there.Believable and atmospheric; just what you need for a historical thriller.
—David Grieve
