The Tryst

by Michael Dibdin

Psychiatrist Aileen Macklin finds herself unprofessionally and mysteriously drawn to a trying patient who has witnessed a murder and who now fears someone is trying to kill him

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, British Literature, Crime

168 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Michael Dibdin was born in 1947. He went to school in Northern Ireland, and later to Sussex University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He lived in Seattle. After completing his first novel, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, in 1978, he spent four years in Italy teaching English at the University of Perugia. His second novel, A Rich Full Death, was published in 1986. It was followed by Ratking in 1988, which won the Gold Dagger Award for the Best Crime Novel of the year and introduced us to his Italian detective - Inspector Aurelio Zen.

Dibdin was married three times, most recently to the novelist K. K. Beck. His death in 2007 followed a short illness.

Series:
* Aurelio Zen

Reviews

[Robin Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a strange story. I was swept in right off the bat, and then it got a bit boring, but eventually it did pick up again, and the ending was very unexpected.

[Charles Kerns · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psycho thriller, a gothic update, a marriage dissection, a sociological look at glue-sniffing gang life, a path to madness. Alternating chapters that converge in a lulu of a trainride.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is my first read by this author, despite seeing his books feature in many used bookstores. Now I know why - people are keen to get rid of them. Bleak uninteresting story with hopeless characters.

[Ben Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had this book been any longer, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. For such a short book it takes a very long time for the story to get going in earnest.

The story takes place in three separate (but connected) times. Two of these are dull. One is vaguely interesting but quite under-explored .

Bizarrely, all the main action happens ‘off-stage’ so to speak. We see a lot of rather meandering events, then a character just explains everything else in one big chunk of exposition near the end. It’s very lazy writing. This last ramble is full of some fairly pointless twists which, even when I hadn’t seen them coming, failed to elicit more than an internal ‘hmm’.

The ending was frankly weird. It felt very much like the author got bored and decided to wrap everything up in ten pages whilst very drunk. After a ham-fisted attempt to pluck at our heartstrings, the story descends into a sequence of events so silly that I actually laughed out loud.

The author seems to have been under the impression that putting in some naughty sex stuff makes a book gritty. Some of the prose in this book is also so purple that it made my toes curl.

Not the worst book I’ve ever read. But it’s up there.

[Scilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about Aileen, a pediatric psychotherapist, who is slowly going mad. Her life with her husband is a constant psycological battle, which she usually loses. Her patient, Gary/Stephen, reminds her of her dead lover, whose child she lost. There are 3 stories within, and the number of coincidences of connections between the characters is not really believable.

[Ann Tonks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book by Mr Dibdin that I've read that isn't about Aurelio Zen, his Italian detective. It's a complex, dense, psychological thriller with great characters and the only reason that it hasn't got 4 stars from me is that the wrap up felt too contrived, too writerly.

[Windy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Psychological thriller which I'm afraid I didn't really enjoy and ended up skimming through it to find out the who and why of it.

[Mikee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rather powerful book, especially the ending. Life (and death) at the edge of madness.

[Tekken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huu, tõeliselt sünge (et mitte öelda skisofreeniline) õudukas Thatcheri valitsusajast. Üks Dibdini Inglise perioodi parimaid saavutusi.

Psühhiaatrist sotsiaaltöötaja Aileen ei kohtu kunagi Esimese maailmasõja veteraniga, keda vaevab mälestus noorpõlves nähtud viirastusest. Veterani segasevõitu lugu kuuleb ta oma patsiendi suust, kes skvottis koos kamba liiminuusutajatega ja kelle jutt tundub ka muidu üpris mõttetuna. Aga Gary Dunni oleks tulnud hoolikamalt kuulata…

Viimane peatükk, kus Aileen mahajäetud mõisahoonesse välja jõuab, on täiesti geniaalne ja samas õõvastav.

[Carole Gene · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully written modern gothic tale!

[Donny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a surprising ending.

[Lucinda Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come

[Desirae Milo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seriously drab and mundane. I can see why his books sit in second hand shops. 168 pages of nothing.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

A miserable, hopeless story with notes of light that deceive in the end. Read this then bash your head against the wall.

[Liliana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a good book by any means but I will say I was captivated for its strange entirety and it did use the word lugubrious so bonus points there

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather sad bunch of characters effectively portrayed which are hard to forget. There were some odd pieces of writing I did like about the book as follow;

"...the words looked like a sort of street haiku, a bleak inventory of human life. You eat, you shit, they bury you. And if you're a middle-aged childless women, she thought, you bleed as well: uselessly, uselessly, month by month."

"At that moment the security guard intervened. A huge West Indian who never stopped smiling, he looked like a black Santa Claus." "Now then, lads let's calm down," he said in a voice that seemed to come from somewhere beneath the floor. He was still smiling merrily.

[Kay Robart · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel begins as a mystery story and morphs into a gothic novel. It is about a young man who tries to have himself committed to a psychiatric hospital claiming that his life is in jeopardy and the psychotherapist who treats him. I did not feel that the novel successfully handled its segue from one type of novel to the other.

See my complete review here:

http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/t...

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a really well-written book but it is disquieting and unsettling, really taking the reader into the minds, lives and circumstances of the author's three central characters. Dibdin certainly can create place and feeling. A brilliant skill!

I read an edition published by faber and faber, London-Boston. It had a dark and disturbing cover. Unfortunately, it is not showed with any cover in the list of editions. A loss as the cover really does reflect the eeriness of the story.

[Chere · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd started this a while back then put it away, and when I went back to it, I didn't know why I didn't read it through the first time. I found the book a quick-paced, suspenseful read that I didn't want to put down until the end.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, disturbing.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet little ol' classic psychological thriller from a writer whose Aurelio Zen mysteries are also well sampling. Hello summer reading!

[Dee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book dragged on and on. It was so slow and boring. I only finished it because it was so short.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading through Dibdin. I liked this novel. It was oddly dreamlike and flowed through time passages. He certainly captures the tone of disgruntled marriages.

[Mel Compo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not at all when I expected

[Harriet Leeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phantastically well crafted , a pure joy, very very good
I thoroughly enjoyed it when I read it

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dibdin is a marvelous writer and this short novel is ingenious.

[Tom]

No Zen

[Jcouk · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird ending

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This thriller is the second non-Aurelio Zen mystery by Michael Dibdin I have read. Both books were very different, stylistically and in tone, from the Zen books, which are, of course, the works Dibdin is really known for. In fact, I thought as I read that I was really reading Ruth Rendell. The similarity with her books is noticeable..
3.5 stars.

[Keith Vernon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too wierd towards the end