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Book Summary and Reviews of A Death in Malta by Paul Caruana Galizia

A Death in Malta by Paul Caruana Galizia

A Death in Malta

An Assassination and a Family's Quest for Justice

by Paul Caruana Galizia

  • Critics' Consensus (8):
  • Published:
  • Nov 2023, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A journalist's spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and a quest for justice that has reverberated far beyond their tiny homeland

An archipelago off the southern coast of Italy, Malta is a picturesque gem eroded by a climate of corruption, polarization, inequality, and a virtual absence of civic spirit. In this unpromising soil, a fearless journalist took root. Daphne Caruana Galizia fashioned herself into the country's lonely voice of conscience, her muckraking and editorializing sending shock waves that threatened to topple those in power and made her at once the island's best-known figure and its most reviled. In 2017, a campaign of intimidation against her culminated in a car bombing that took her life.

Daphne was also the devoted and inspiring mother to three sons, who with their father have carried on the quest for justice and transparency after her death. Spellbindingly narrated by the youngest of them, the award-winning journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, A Death in Malta is at once a study in heroism and the powerful story of a family's crusade for accountability in a society built on lies, with reverberations far beyond their homeland.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Blistering … an instant classic of political true crime" —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A memorable book of a courageous crusade for justice." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Paul Caruana Galizia is a superb storyteller. His book reads at times like a thriller, at times like a detective story, and at times like the work of an investigative journalist uncovering webs of corruption.... A moving testament to the life and work of an extraordinary woman and the country-changing power of journalism." —Sunday Times (UK)

"An unforgettable profile in courage: that of a journalist who risked her life to hold power and corruption to account; and that of her family, whose fight for justice exemplifies the intensity and ingenuity we must bring to the defense of democracy wherever the tide rises against it. Riveting and inspiring." —Bill Browder, author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Freezing Order and Red Notice

"Daphne Caruana Galizia was a trailblazer, exposing the kleptocratic practices of Malta's elite - the same practices now found all across Europe and North America. The story of her heroic life, tragic death and its aftermath, told by her son, are essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of democracy." —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Twilight of Democracy and Red Famine

"Full of anger, determination and passion, this is crucial reading for anyone worried about how dirty money is undermining democracy."—Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland

This information about A Death in Malta was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Paul Caruana Galizia

Paul Caruana Galizia became a journalist after his mother was assassinated and has won a British Journalism Award and multiple other honors for his reporting. With his brothers, he has received a Magnitsky Human Rights Award and an Anderson-Norman-Lucas Award for campaigning to achieve justice for Daphne.

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