“With the shooting in Paris, Europe has rediscovered that writing can be dangerous. We had forgotten. Perhaps Italians hadn’t forgotten, at least not those of us who write about the mafia. Ten Italian journalists currently live under police protection after being threatened by the mafia, including Lirio Abbate, whose bodyguards found a bomb under his car after he wrote a book about Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano. Freedom of expression is not a right we are granted in perpetuity – if we neglect it, it will wither like a plant you forget to water.”