A Death in Malta

An Assassination and a Family's Quest for Justice

By: Paul Caruana Galizia

Narrated by: Paul Caruana Galizia

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

“A chronicle of the sort of silencing-by-murder that we might have thought happens only in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. . . . [and] a son’s distraught but beautiful tribute to his journalist-mother. . . . Exquisite.” —Wall Street Journal

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 he 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.

©2023 Paul Caruana Galizia (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“So what makes a book about a ‘small, sunny island’ that nobody ‘ever really thought about’ so devastatingly compelling? The answer lies in the name on the spine. … The author has won deserved plaudits for his investigations into everything from oligarchic influence in Westminster to sex pests in the City. But A Death in Malta is a more personal investigation … a work of rare vividness and authority … [with] passages of sometimes heart-aching tenderness.” —Financial Times

“[Caruana Galizia] writes movingly about his mother and her work. . . . [and] expertly lays bare the island’s webs of corruption and hate.” —The Economist

“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

“There are crooks everywhere you look”

I visited Malta in 2022. As we strolled passed the Great Siege monument I spotted Daphne Caruana Galizia’s picture, all set up as an impromptu Justice For Daphne memorial. I had read about her assassination prior to our trip and here I stood, as a random tourist passing by, finding myself feeling deep admiration, sadness, respect and confusion. Thanks you Paul, for writing this book! I highly recommend it to anyone to learn about this important story.