A Death in Malta

Starred review from September 11, 2023
Journalist Galizia (The Economy of Modern Malta) combines the personal and the political in this blistering account of his mother’s crusade against government corruption, her subsequent murder, and his family’s efforts to find justice. Daphne Caruana Galizia (1964–2017) became Malta’s first female newspaper columnist in the 1990s and wrote extensively on illegal activity by government officials. Daphne’s rigorous investigations—which stood in contrast to Malta’s otherwise passive media ecosystem—led Politico to dub her a “a one-woman WikiLeaks” and provoked regular threats to her and her family’s lives, including multiple attempts to set their home on fire. On October 16, 2017, a bomb detonated in the car Daphne was driving, killing her instantly. The assassination caused an international uproar; while those involved in planting and detonating the device were apprehended, questions about who hired them remain. Galizia recounts his mother’s extraordinary career without tipping into hagiography, and catalogs the infuriating obstacles he and his family have faced as they’ve sought answers about her death. The result is an instant classic of political true crime that will make readers’ blood boil. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary.

October 1, 2023
Journalist Galizia details his mother Daphne's life and legacy in the shadow of the beautiful yet deeply corrupt island-state of Malta. Off the coast of Italy, the small archipelago of Malta provided a picturesque childhood for the three Galizia boys. But for their mother, an investigative journalist, it was rife with questionable business practices and government misconduct that fueled her work. Daphne started her own blog so that she could write freely and soon amassed a following larger than most of the mainstream newspapers. It wasn't long before the family was subjected to multiple fear tactics--their dog's throat slit, a fire set outside their home, death threats--all culminating in October of 2017, when a car bomb exploded, instantly killing Daphne. Low-level gangsters were arrested in short order, but the author, his brothers, and their father continue pushing for justice, as it is certain that bigger names are behind the hit. Galizia combines memoir, true crime, and history as he details Malta's complicated past for a riveting and unnerving story that remains fully unresolved.

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October 1, 2023
A son's moving account of his quest for justice for his mother, who was murdered in 2017. Galizia is the youngest of three sons of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who died in a car bombing near her home in Bidnija, Malta, after a risky career exposing government corruption and graft. In this poignant tribute to his mother, the author methodically builds on a history of Malta as a place historically riven by tensions. The island was occupied for several centuries by Arabs, then European Catholics, then English Protestants, and it grew into a haves and have-nots capital of offshore wealth from Italy. Although Malta gained independence from England in 1964, the inhabitants still speak an Arab dialect and suffer from a clannishness that appalled the author's activist mother, who became radicalized after she was arrested for participating in protests as a young woman. Married to a lawyer, Daphne moved to the small hamlet of Bidnija just as her career as a newspaper political columnist took off. Malta joined the European Union in 2003. However, as the author writes, "the deeper change--a transition to a true liberal democracy based on secular rather than Catholic ethics, on a civic identity rather than a partisan one--never arrived." The author shows how access to global markets was exploited by politicians like former prime minister Joseph Muscat, whom Daphne exposed selling favors and passports, money laundering, and deporting refugees from North Africa. She had been working on a case involving a power company, Electrogas, when the car bomb killed her. Along with his brothers and father, the author went to the Council of Europe, garnering international support for their case against the Maltese government. After two years, they were able to prosecute the middlemen involved in the assassination, and the public scandal forced Muscat's resignation in 2020. A memorable book of a courageous crusade for justice.

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October 23, 2023

In A Death in Malta, multi-award-winning journalist Galizia profiles his journalist mother, Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose efforts to expose corruption in Malta led to her assassination in 2017; also addressed, the family's struggle to hold someone accountable. Prepub Alert.

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