A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin, the author of five mystery books that are included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, albeit on The Greatest Books of All Time site, his best ranked work is only 3711th – hundreds of those volumes are revied on my blog, where my best take is here: https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html - 9 out of 10

 

A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin, the author of five mystery books that are included on The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, albeit on The Greatest Books of All Time site, his best ranked work is only 3711^th – hundreds of those volumes are revied on my blog, where my best take is here:

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

9 out of 10

 

 

I have read and enjoyed four novels by Michael Dibdin, Dead Lagoon https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/08/dead-lagoon-by-michael-dibdin-author-of.html Ratking, Vendetta and now A Rich Full Death, Ratking might be my favorite, in large part because it was the first, and a surprise

 

There is a lot to like in A Rich Full Death, for instance this idea ‘The Whole Art and Secret of Conversational Success…The entire work would consist of but two words: Ask Questions. everyone—rich and poor, famous and unknown—would rather talk than listen, rather answer than ask, rather entertain than be entertained, rather bore than be bored. Give them the opportunity to do so, and they will always invite you back’

This is an elaborate, erudite, intelligent, challenging – so much so that I lost concentration at one stage, though that tends to happen, the work has to be so damn good, humorous, captivating, respecting especially one of the rules of Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html

 

I will just mention the one about being on the line between boredom and burnout, we need to be challenged, but not overwhelmed, and this book is in that realm, we have a series of murders – thus, the main character would be a serial killer, only there might be a secret here – and we get clues from…Dante, The Inferno

It reminds me of 7even, with Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and his then girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow, who is now known for the exaggerated Goop, in that movie, we have another assassin, who is posting quotes from the capital sins, as listed by the bible, and the victims are ‘punished’ for their sloth, gargantuan habits and the rest

 

‘I stay in this city where one is confronted on every side by evidence of the genius of the Past; where such figures as Giotto, as Dante, as Michelangelo, are as it were one’s daily bread…’ so we have this marvelous background and musings on art, literature - Keats meant that Truth is Beauty, and the solution is original

 

Indeed, this is one of the most creative endings – I will not divulge, not because of common sense, there is the spoiler alert formula, but because I am not sure I understand what happens, or maybe doesn’t, at the end – and it is there, with https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd-by-agatha.html

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, in which the murderer turns out to be…the narrator, the doctor himself, called to assist and all, well, he is the one, in terms of erudition, A Rich Full death aspires to be on the level of The Name of The Rose – another link is here, because everything has been said before

 

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-name-of-rose-by-umberto-ecco.html continuing to list some of the mystery books that have impressed me, there would be The Daughter of Time, one of the Association of Crime Writers has placed this at Number One, for their Top 100, and we can see why, given its quality

in the Daughter of Time, the detective looks at Richard III – ‘now is the winter of our discontent…and all the clouds that lured upon our sky, in the deep bosom of the ocean buried’ -and his alleged murders, and the truth is he has not killed those children, although 99% of those asked would say he was a villain, which is fake ‘news’

 

https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-daughter-of-time-by-josephine-fey.html as for opening, there is nothing better than

‘It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter ‘So begins the classic crime novel Malice Aforethought, and coming back to A Rich Fall Death, we have a look at…Beatrice – ‘I’m not sure that I am very interested in what Beatrice would say,’ he replied with distaste. ‘Who was she, after all? A vulgar merchant’s daughter who married a banker and died young. It may be that she would have been rash enough to speak of the poet in the fashion you suggest, although give me leave to doubt it. But if he had not singled her out from all the other pretty children, no one today would have the slightest interest in what she had to say about anything. One might hope she would remember that before she opened her mouth to mock her benefactor.’

 

We have so much inside, a medium, love and cheating, but overall, it does not pass the test from To The Hermitage, which is quoted below, the one about literature offering characters that are deeper, more interesting than what we find in real life

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’