Ratking is the first novel the British writer Michael Dibdin wrote about Aurelio Zen, the Venetian-born Roman detective with an unfortunate reputation for integrity. This novel was published in the U.S. in 1988. It won the Gold Dagger award in that year.
Dibdin taught in Perugia for four years; that seems to be where he got the inspiration to set this novel in Perugia.
Several of his novels have been made into a detective series starring Rufus Sewell that is being shown on Masterpiece Theatre here (Vendetta, Cabal and Ratking). The series is quite stylish (Sewell is always wearing sunglasses and a dark suit with a skinny tie, making him a dour and intimidating reminder of Marcello Mastroianno), with great music. Sewell's stillness reminds me of that old bromide: "If you want to get someone's attention, just whisper."
In Ratking, an influential man pulls some strings to get officials at the Ministry of the Interior to look into a kidnapping case that has been dragging on for months. Kidnapping is a growth industry and the police are stretched pretty thin, so Enrico Mancini calls on Aurelio Zen. Zen is surprised to be sent to Perugia; ever since he became obsessed with the death of a colleague working on the Aldo Moro kidnapping case (1978), he had been removed from active duty and had labored in the career desert “Housekeeping” section of the Interior Ministry, an internal exile.
Zen recognizes what he’s up against from the very beginning. He has a police driver who, he guesses, is reporting on his movements and actions to the higher-ups in Rome. He’s resented by the Perugian cops, who make it clear that he’s not welcome, and by the investigating judge, who has a grand, and Zen thinks, unlikely conspiracy theory, and by the victim’s family, who are not cooperating with the authorities and don’t want Zen either.
Before he’s been in Perugia 24 hours, he’s been insulted by the local police, invited to a disastrous dinner with the kidnap victim’s family, and learned that the family attorney who’s been acting as a go-between for the family with the kidnappers has been shot. He knows he’s in a weak position and will have to tread very carefully.
Meanwhile, there are lovely little bits of local color. The restauranteur who bemoans the current interest in dieting, which he says is ruining the restaurant business (that which the Huns, Goths, and Turks could not do, dieting is doing).
Eating is a central metaphor. An ambitious man with stomach problems cannot eat because of his condition but as a child was always hungry, wishing he were as big as his brother. When Zen’s neglected American girlfriend comes to visit him in Perugia, the picnic she plans proves to be a disaster, auguring a sad denouement. When she breaks up with him, he fears what’s coming because he’s astounded to learn that she plans to feed him “American-style” hamburgers from a packet.
A late train inspires an agitated discussion of whether the culture of the North or the South is superior, and whether Italian lack of concern with train timetables is a priceless national treasure. Zen often thinks of his father, who died in the Second World War, and his childhood in Venice. He remembers that Perugia’s warren of streets perched on a hilltop grew out of a need for defence, as did the founding of his home city, Venice, on islands in a lagoon.
Despite Zen’s care, events quickly spiral out of control. He finally resorts to colorful ruses to bring his investigation to a close.
Zen is a detective who’s outwardly placid and hard to provoke and a pretty good political player but whose ongoing sense of sorrow about the early death of his father, his grief over losing his American girlfriend, and his clever playacting as a detective makes him a little more interesting and this story a little more thrilling than your average English country house mystery.
The significance of the title is explained by Bartocci, the magistrate:
Dibdin taught in Perugia for four years; that seems to be where he got the inspiration to set this novel in Perugia.
Several of his novels have been made into a detective series starring Rufus Sewell that is being shown on Masterpiece Theatre here (Vendetta, Cabal and Ratking). The series is quite stylish (Sewell is always wearing sunglasses and a dark suit with a skinny tie, making him a dour and intimidating reminder of Marcello Mastroianno), with great music. Sewell's stillness reminds me of that old bromide: "If you want to get someone's attention, just whisper."
In Ratking, an influential man pulls some strings to get officials at the Ministry of the Interior to look into a kidnapping case that has been dragging on for months. Kidnapping is a growth industry and the police are stretched pretty thin, so Enrico Mancini calls on Aurelio Zen. Zen is surprised to be sent to Perugia; ever since he became obsessed with the death of a colleague working on the Aldo Moro kidnapping case (1978), he had been removed from active duty and had labored in the career desert “Housekeeping” section of the Interior Ministry, an internal exile.
Zen recognizes what he’s up against from the very beginning. He has a police driver who, he guesses, is reporting on his movements and actions to the higher-ups in Rome. He’s resented by the Perugian cops, who make it clear that he’s not welcome, and by the investigating judge, who has a grand, and Zen thinks, unlikely conspiracy theory, and by the victim’s family, who are not cooperating with the authorities and don’t want Zen either.
Before he’s been in Perugia 24 hours, he’s been insulted by the local police, invited to a disastrous dinner with the kidnap victim’s family, and learned that the family attorney who’s been acting as a go-between for the family with the kidnappers has been shot. He knows he’s in a weak position and will have to tread very carefully.
Meanwhile, there are lovely little bits of local color. The restauranteur who bemoans the current interest in dieting, which he says is ruining the restaurant business (that which the Huns, Goths, and Turks could not do, dieting is doing).
Eating is a central metaphor. An ambitious man with stomach problems cannot eat because of his condition but as a child was always hungry, wishing he were as big as his brother. When Zen’s neglected American girlfriend comes to visit him in Perugia, the picnic she plans proves to be a disaster, auguring a sad denouement. When she breaks up with him, he fears what’s coming because he’s astounded to learn that she plans to feed him “American-style” hamburgers from a packet.
A late train inspires an agitated discussion of whether the culture of the North or the South is superior, and whether Italian lack of concern with train timetables is a priceless national treasure. Zen often thinks of his father, who died in the Second World War, and his childhood in Venice. He remembers that Perugia’s warren of streets perched on a hilltop grew out of a need for defence, as did the founding of his home city, Venice, on islands in a lagoon.
Despite Zen’s care, events quickly spiral out of control. He finally resorts to colorful ruses to bring his investigation to a close.
Zen is a detective who’s outwardly placid and hard to provoke and a pretty good political player but whose ongoing sense of sorrow about the early death of his father, his grief over losing his American girlfriend, and his clever playacting as a detective makes him a little more interesting and this story a little more thrilling than your average English country house mystery.
The significance of the title is explained by Bartocci, the magistrate:
“.. The condition of this conspiracy is that we’re all part of it,” Bartocci retorted. “It’s like a ratking.”
“A what?”
“A ratking. Do you know what that is?”
Zen shrugged. “The king rat, I suppose. The dominant animal in the pack.”
Bartocci shook his head. “That’s what everyone thinks. But they’re wrong. A ratking is something that happens when too many rats have to live in too small a space under too much pressure. Their tails become entwined and the more they strain and stretch to free themselves the tighter grows the knot binding them, until at last it becomes a solid mass of embedded tissue. And the creature thus formed, as many as thirty rats tied together by the tail, is called a ratking. You wouldn’t expect such a living contradiction to survive, would you? That’s the most amazing thing of all. Most of the ratkings that are discovered, in the plaster of old houses or beneath the floorboards of a barn, are healthy and flourishing..
“..What we’re dealing with is not a creature but a condition. The condition of being crucified to your fellows, squealing madly, biting, spitting, lashing out, yet somehow surviving, somehow even vilely flourishing! ..The ratking is self-regulating. It responds automatically and effectively to any threat. Each rat defends the interests of the others. The strength of each is the strength of all.”
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