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Cover of Back to Bologna

How long does it take to read Back to Bologna?

Michael Dibdin

Back to Bologna by Michael Dibdin takes about 4 hours 5 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

Part of Aurelio Zen

Previous: Medusa Next: End Games

About 4 hours 5 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2005. 223 pages, about 61,325 words.

9 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 6 hours 49 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 5 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 33 minutes

The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

When the corpse of the shady industrialist who owns the local football team is found both shot and stabbed with a Parmesan knife, Italian police inspector Aurelio Zen is called to Bologna to oversee the investigation. Recovering slowly from surgery, and fleeing an equally painful crisis in his personal life, Zen is only too happy to take on what at first appears to be a routine and relatively undemanding assignment.But soon a world-famous university professor is shot with the same gun, immediately after publicly humiliating Italy?s leading celebrity television chef, and the case?intertwined with the fates of an earnest student of semiotics and a mysterious young immigrant who claims to be from Ruritania?spins out of control, and Zen is in no condition to rise to the challenge. There?s also a wild card in the pack, Tony Speranza, Bologna?s most flamboyant private detective.Back to Bologna is dazzlingly plotted, features a cast of vivid and idiosyncratic characters, and along the way delivers both comic and serious insights into the realities of today?s Italy.

Subjects: Mystery, Police, Fiction, Aurelio Zen (Fictitious character), Italy, fiction, Fiction, mystery & detective, general

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