Death and the Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s – Stephen Gundle

Description

On 9 April 1953 an attractive twenty-one-year-old woman went missing from her family home in Rome. Thirty-six hours later her body was found washed up on a neglected beach at Torvaianica, forty kilometres from the Italian capital. Some said it was suicide; others, a tragic accident. But as the police tried to close the case, darker rumours bubbled to the surface. Could it be that the mysterious death of this quiet, conservative girl was linked to a drug-fuelled orgy, involving some of the richest and most powerful men in Italy? It was a crime that the newspapers, the public and one particularly determined detective wanted to get to the heart of. The short life and tragic death of Wilma Montesi was played out against a fascinating backdrop. By the 1950s Italy, in the wake of …