A Rich Full Death

Florence,1855. "The English are dying too much," the city's police chief observes. And members of the foreign community in this quaint Italian backwater, both English and American, are indeed dying at an alarming rate and in an extraordinary variety of ingenious and horrible ways.

With the local authorities out of their depth, the distinguished resident Robert Browning launches his own private investigation, aided and abetted by an expatriot Robert Booth. Unfortunately, their amateur sleuthing is hampered by the fact that each of their suspects becomes the next victim in a series of murders orchestrated by a killer with a taste for poetic justice. A Rich Full Death features characters both historical and imaginary, ranging from an enticing servant girl to Mr. Browning's consumptive, world-famous wife, Elizabeth Barrett, in a tale lush with period detail, intricately plotted, and with a truly astonishing final twist.

Author: Michael Dibdin
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Published: 06/29/1999
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.23w x 0.67d
ISBN: 9780375706141

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 05/17/1999 pg. 59
Ingram Advance 07/01/1999 pg. 42
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/1999 pg. 1004
New York Times 08/08/1999 pg. 21
Library Journal 06/01/1999

About the Author
Michael Dibdin was born in England and raised in Northern Ireland. He attended Sussex University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He spent five years in Perugia, Italy, where he taught English at the local university. He went on to live in Oxford, England and Seattle, Washington. He was the author of eighteen novels, eleven of them in the popular Aurelio Zen series, including Ratking, which won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger, and Cabal, which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He died in 2007.