Stephen Gundle is an historian with specialist interest in modern Italy. His books include Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy and Glamour: A History. Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, he has also lived for many years in Italy, and is a contributor to History Today, Radio 4's Night Waves and the Italian press.

About the Author

Reviews

A brilliant, methodical investigation of a murder scandal that convulsed the Roman political and social establishment in the 1950s.
* * Financial Times * *

Death and the Dolce Vita, a hybrid of history and police detection, brilliantly recreates the details of the Montesi affair...as well as being a thriller, [it] provides an excellent account of the virtues and misdeeds of Europe's most foxy political class.
* * Guardian * *

An intense, claustrophobic narrative of murder, mystery and scandal worthy of a Verdi opera . . . a page-turning narrative that explores its extraordinary characters and even more extraordinary cover-ups, evasions and dissemblage, reaching to the top of Italian political life.
* * Scotsman * *

This is microcosmic history at its most effective: Gundle finds big stories in the small print, teasing out the implications for city and nation of this darkly glamorous demi-monde of starlets and playboys, gossip columnists and - paparazzi.
* * Independent * *

Gundle traces a path through the labyrinth of investigation, cover-up and conspiracy theory that followed to show how the peculiar death of a respectable, unassuming carpenter's daughter came to develop into one of the great scandals - and unsolved mysteries - of the Fifties.
* * Daily Telegraph * *

What Gundle captures so magnificently is how the case shed light on the intersection between the stars of public life and the dark underbelly of post-war Rome.
* * Metro * *

An incredible story and a must-read for crime novel fans.
* * Press Association * *

Captivating from the first page ... A tragic case, long-forgotten, has been skilfully resurrected in this brilliant expose of murder and scandal.
* * We Love This Book * *

A must-read for crime novel fans.
* * Oxford Times * *

A dark, dramatic true-crime story.
* * Saga * *

Gundle's intellectual energy and his capacity for research has produced a book that vibrates with the peculiarities of post-war Italy, particularly those of Rome. It is a powerful, convincing recreation of a time and a place.
* * Glasgow Sunday Herald * *

Inspired . . . the whole gloriously unimproving narrative provides the essential backstory for the Berlusconian bunga-bunga of Italy in our own day.
* * Literary Review * *

There is unlikely to be a more thorough and diligently researched account of the scandal than this one.
* * Spectator * *

What [Gundle] has done is brilliantly reconstruct the evolution of a conspiracy theory
* * Daily Express * *

Thrilling . . . This is a fascinating story, full of intrigue, gossip, fascinating detail and surprising twists. But it is what Gundle does with the story that makes this such a good book . . . written with verve, this book is hard to put down - but it is also a classic Italian giallo (murder mystery), in which the authorities seem as dodgy as the accused.
* * TLS * *

An engrossing whodunit
* * The Scotsman * *

A page-turning narrative that explores its extraordinary characters and even more extraordinary cover-ups... each unravelling thread leads to more knots and more tangled mysterious threads
* * The Scotsman * *

Gundle has pulled off a stunning coup... the term 'eroticism of detail' could have been made for this book
* * The Scotsman * *

Gundle is a brilliant writer and makes you feel as if you're reading a fictional crime novel
* * Eastern Daily Press * *

An incredible story... a must-read for crime novel fans
* * Eastern Daily Press * *