Protagonist of a series of detective novels by
Michael Dibdin.
Zen is an
Italian policeman of
Venetian origin who has a strong knack for getting up the
wrong people's noses. The books offer a perceptive (although written by a foreigner) and unsentimental view of the way that society functions in contemporary
Italy, some way from both the tourist
clichés and
The Godfather; the books seem strongly influenced by the works of
Leonardo Sciascia.