Skip navigation
London Review of Books London Review Bookshop

The Yellow and the Black subscriber-only content

Tobias Jones

  • The Colombian Mule by Massimo Carlotto, translated by Christopher Woodall
  • The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli
  • The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen Sartarelli
  • Almost Blue by Carlo Lucarelli, translated by Oonagh Stransky
  • The Advocate: A Sardinian Mystery by Marcello Fois, translated by Patrick Creagh

In Padua, on 20 January 1976, a young girl called Margherita Magello was repeatedly stabbed and left for dead. She was discovered by Massimo Carlotto, a 19-year-old student radical and member of Lotta Continua, who tried to save her, and, in doing so, got covered in her blood. She died, he was arrested and, a pawn in the struggle between Lotta Continua and the police, was tried for her murder. Just before sentence was pronounced, his lawyer advised him to run. He escaped to Paris and ended up in Mexico, where, in 1985, he was betrayed by a Mexican lawyer and extradited to Italy. Retried, he was found guilty and imprisoned until, in 1993, he was pardoned by the president.

subscriber-only content Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article is available for purchase online. Buy this article.

Tobias Jones, a former editorial assistant at the LRB, is the author of the bestselling Dark Heart of Italy.

LRB cover artwork

From the archive

What Explosion?
Paul Seabright in Toulouse

Kosovo’s Big Men
Jeremy Harding talks to KLA officers and an ‘official government source’ in Kosovo

Short Cuts
Daniel Soar: The Kursk

Just Another Western Journalist
John Lloyd in Romania

Only in the Balkans
Misha Glenny: The Balkans Imagined