When Paul Caruana Galizia was at work in London, his eldest brother called to say their mother Daphne had just been assassinated. That day, he returned to their native Malta and, with his two brothers and their father, began a quest to discover who was responsible for Daphne’s murder and who stood to profit from ending the life of a journalist whose courage and determination threatened the powerful with the truth. Two years later, they did.

A Death in Malta is more than an investigation into the life and assassination of Daphne by her son Paul. It’s an examination of the globalisation of corruption and what it has done to a modern European country; it’s about that country’s escape from colonialism to another kind of arrogant power; it’s a personal history of writing when the stakes are high and the intimidation is violent. Above all, it’s a universal homage to mothers and their sons.