The Dark Heart of Italy

In 1999 Tobias Jones emigrated to Italy, expecting to discover the pastoral bliss described by centuries of foreign visitors. Instead, he discovered a country riven by skulduggery, where crime is scarcely ever met with punishment. This book is his account of a three-year voyage across the Italian peninsula.

In this new and updated edition, Jones offers in-depth analysis of the recent triumphs and crimes of Italian football: a World Cup victory shadowed by the discovery of endemic corruption in Serie A. He returns to previous haunts - to parliament, prisons and courtrooms - to pick up the threads of previous investigations, and inevitably discovers surreal new ones. And he looks back on the Berlusconi era, weighing changes in the media and the economy, as well as in his own perceptions of Italy’s extraordinary qualities and quirks.