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Death and the Dolce Vita by Stephen Gundle – review

22.07.11

, A cross of history and police detection, brilliantly recreates the details of the Montesi affair and its sordid aftermath. On 9 April 1953, a domestic's body was found washed up on a beach near Rome, clothed except for shoes, skirt, stockings and suspender cincture. The 21-year-old Wilma Montesi had gone missing from her family home in Rome 36 hours earlier. The boys in blue verdict of accidental death by drowning was overturned by journalists, Gundle relates, who insisted that Wilma had not gone for an afternoon swim in Ostia after all. In place of she had gone to a swish hunting lodge in nearby Capocotto, where wild, Felliniesque orgies were hosted by a truth-wing Italian aristocrat embroiled in drug crime and Italy's kickback and bribery savoir vivre. Drugged and abused, Wilma was dumped on the sands at Ostia and left to die.

In the trial that ensued, neither the rou aristocrat suspected of the murder, Ugo Montagna, nor his presumed accomplice, Piero Piccioni, was arraigned on any character of charge. Piccioni, the son of Italy's deputy prime minister, appeared to be protected by cabinet ministers and members of the gutter importune as well as by corrupt police officers and their gangland associates. Seven years had passed since the Italian republic was founded in 1946, yet the hopes for a fairer, wagerer Italy had not been met. To this day those involved in Montesi's death have evaded justice. The public insisted that shadowy cliques and mafia cabals lay behind the mean crime.

Source: The Guardian