Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano

Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano by Moseley, Ray. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780300079173.

Married to Benito Mussolinis favorite daughter Edda, Galeazzo Ciano was a brilliant, ambitious and ruthless young Italian. Throughout his period in office Ciano kept a diary so detailed and revealing that both Mussolini and Hitler sought to impound and destroy it. The diary was smuggled out of Italy by Edda, who sought unsuccessfully to trade it for Cianos life. The diary was later acquired by the American spy, Allen W. Dulles (later head of the CIA) and published in full in the Chicago Daily News. It remains one of the classic insider accounts of the workings of the Fascist and Nazi governments. Cianos glamorous, violent, and promiscuous life was acted out at the highest levels of European politics and society. There has never been a biography of him in English: this is one gripping read.