Italy is exhausted. Tired of the political class. Tired of the inept moderates and the agonizing machinations of a democracy that no longer seems to be working.

While the leaders of the country have sat idly in the safety of parliament, achieving nothing, one man on the outside has risen to the top.

He is a misfit par excellence, a protector of the demobilized, a lost drifter searching for the way. He speaks for the outcasts, the renegades and the ideologically pure. He is a former socialist leader ousted by his party, the director of a small opposition newspaper, a tireless political agitator.

Like an animal, he can smell that change is coming.

He is Benito Mussolini.

M. tells the story of the rise of fascism from within the mind of its founder. Rich in historical detail, and interspersed with real documents and sources, this is a masterful work of historical fiction with urgent resonance for our times