Michael Dibdin. Vendetta. 1991.

This stellar novel mystery has for me one painful flaw, which I cannot reveal without undermining the suspense of an effective story, filled with complexities, red herrings, prolonged surprises, and surprisingly lovely, vivid writing. The set-up is as in Ratking—an Italian detective is committed to solving a crime, although everybody, especially his own superiors, is opposed to proper policework and expects him to frame an innocent person. This book must rank as a small classic of well-wrought contemporary mystery fiction by a commercial writer, alongside March Violets. I would ascribe its success to flourishes of good descriptive writing, and a plot like a juggling act with four separate intrigues in play simultaneously, such that it is not always clear which interest perpetrates any given action, and that a focus on one thread can allow another thread to make a surprise appearance. Now that I reflect further, all four parties antagonizing our hero Aurelio Zen are immersed in some sort of vendetta against him—personal, political, or professional—even as he investigates what appears to be a revenge murder. Fantastic.