Michael Dibdin's Italian criminalpol officer Aurelio Zen ''intelligent, devious and effective'' is back in another broody, atmospheric mystery. In A Long Finish Zen is sent on a detecting mission to Alba, a Piedmontese village in the heart of wine and truffle country, where murders tend to evoke decades-old feuds, complicated by love and politics. Still, with a little help from the fast-talking, lecherous, Scarlatti-loving village doctor and a mysterious young woman named Carla, Zen manages to hold his own, and to give nothing away except for an old family recipe for curing the common cold that involves copious amounts of raw garlic and red wine. Try this one at home. B


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