The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

At 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday April 7 1926 a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome''s Campidoglio Square and shot Mussolini at point-blank range. He escaped virtually unscathed. Violet Gibson who expected to be thanked for her action was arrested labeled a crazy Irish spinster and a half-mad mystic---and promptly forgotten. Now in an elegant work of reconstruction Frances Stonor Saunders retrieves this remarkable figure from the lost historical record. In a grand tragic narrative full of suspense and mystery conspiracy and back-room diplomacy she vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe whatever the cost.