The Toledano family is an old, extended, established, Jewish family in Malta, who has been on the island ever since great-grandmother Beatrice was persuaded to leave her native Florence and marry a man she hardly knew and, much to her regret, later, relocate to Malta, an arid rock in the middle of an inhospitable sea.

The family lived in an old and crumbling house in Lapsi Street, St Julian's, surrounded on all sides by newly-developed buildings, with the one next door purchased by Russians who never come to Malta. The previous views down to the sea have now disappeared.

The family has had its share of tragedies, especially the death of Sarita, blown up by a letter bomb during the doctors' strike when Mintoff was prime minister. She may have inadvertently picked up the envelope which was not intended for her.

The blast broke up the Toledano family. Alberto Sacerdote, Sarita's husband, took his daughter Claire and left Malta.

The family still retained links and some came back regularly to Malta, others less so.

The book focuses on three cousins, second generation Toledanos - Eleonora (Ellie), Vanna and Claire.

Claire lives in Brussels and has recently seen her marriage break up.

Ellie is well-known in Australia where she lives. Her visit to Malta makes the Australian news because this well-known human rights campaigner got involved when a boatload of migrants foundered and the survivors clung to a fish-farm for days before they were rescued. She is also involved with saving migrants and, characteristically defying the family's Jewish history, vociferously pro-Palestine.

Vanna, the least regarded of the trio, had been taken to Israel by her parents but she is now back in Malta battling the cockroaches in the house and upholding the family history and tradition. She is fat and always munching something.

The three have been brought up in Catholic schools but defied all efforts to convert them.

Though this book was published in 2012, there are uncanny references to Daphne Caruana Galizia and her murder by a bomb in 2017. Actually, there is at one point a reference to the earlier attempt on Daphne's life through fire-bombing her house, quoting from this same paper.

The issue, which brings the three cousins back to Malta, regards the precarious state of their two old spinster aunts who everyone agrees cannot be left alone in the crumbling house, nor can they be relocated to a Church-run home for the elderly, out of fear the priests would try to convert them.

Vanna comes up with the idea of spiriting them with her to Israel where she would be able to take care of them.

But before this can be done, a mystery is solved. As Claire and Ellie are taking part in a confrontation with Alleanza Nazzjonali on Palace Square, a woman breaks through the Police ranks and rushes at the two girls, spitting on them and calling their father a murderer.

For all the speculation about the letter-bomb, this is an angle that has not been investigated: the bombing may not only have got the wrong person but was aimed at a father, a doctor obeying strike orders who did not visit a sick girl as a result of which she subsequently died.

This book was shortlisted for the Outbound Best Novel Prize 2011 and was runner-up for the Harry Bowling Prize 2012.