A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World

The car bomb assassination of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 shocked the European Union and put the world’s spotlight on an island so small that few knew it was an independent country and even fewer could find it on the map. But Caruana Galizia’s death didn’t come as a surprise to those who lived there.

Ryan Murdock had visions of living a slow-paced island life on the Mediterranean while writing about his experiences, so in 2011 he moved from Canada to Malta...