Thanksgiving Book

This is a departure for Dibdin, at least from his Aurelio Zen series. This is direct, shorter, and set in America. It is as much a straightforward, realistic novel as it is a crime/suspense book. This is a story of loss, troubled relationships, and the struggle of how to deal with a past that hangs over into the present. The narrative begins with Tony, an English born journalist, paying an ill-advised midnight visit to a trailer in the Nevada desert, the home of slithery, garrulous Daryl Bob, the ex-husband of his recently deceased wife Lucy. Her sexy spirit hangs over the proceedings, giving rise to memories and jealousies that threaten to destroy Tony's present existence. They have a strange, rambling conversation. The Englishman has a gun in his pocket. A couple of days later, Daryl Bob is found dead. It looks as though Tony, the narrator and main character, he might be charged with murder.

It is a good set-up for a noirish thriller, and at first, Dibdin takes it in that direction. But this writer loves to confound expectations and make unexpected moves. At this point, it becomes more a novel of memory of bygone passion, but there is still a good deal of uncertainty concerning the state of mind of Tony, and the reader realizes that he could be an unreliable narrator. This could probably be labeled a psychological thriller, since a good deal of the suspense stems from the revelation of character and backstory. There are moments of brilliant writing, as there usually are in a Dibdin book. "Thanksgiving" deepened my respect for Dibdin, and made me wonder if there are more like it in his oeuvre. He was clearly more than just a writer of entertaining detective stories set in a fanciful version of Italy. This one proves that he could write good psychological suspense and contemporary fiction as well.