Book Review: A Death in Malta

A Death in Malta
By Paul Caruana Galizia
Review by Claudia

This book is a shocking and invigorating look into one small country’s closely knitted web of corruption. Daphne Caruana Galizia, mother of the author, was a Maltese journalist. She was murdered in 2017 with a car bomb planted by hitmen hired by Maltese politicians. A Death in Malta details her career as a journalist and her investigation into the links between the Panama Papers and the Maltese government. Written by her youngest son Paul, the book is hard to put down. At times the quest for justice for her family feels hopeless, but something changed for the citizens of Malta after Daphne’s murder. This book is both a manual for how to spot corruption, a recipe for its undoing and a shining example of why journalism is so important. Her sons have ensured her death has not been in vain, and their account of the lengths they had to go to for not only justice but fairness in their own country’s law court moved me to tears several times. There is hope in the face of corruption, and it is hard won.