Tobias Jones is a British author and journalist. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, and then worked at the London Review of Books and the Independent on Sunday. He moved to Parma in Italy in 1999, returning to the UK in 2004. Jones and his wife now manage a ten-acre woodland shelter near Shepton Mallet, Somerset called Windsor Hill Wood.
Non-fiction
His first book, The Dark Heart of Italy was a bestseller in Britain, Italy and the United States. Following its publication, he was short-listed for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. In January 2007 he published his second book Utopian Dreams after a year spent travelling with his wife Francesca and first daughter Benedetta across five communities in Britain and Italy. The book was featured on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week as well as being Book of the Week on that network. Jones' third non-fiction book, Blood on the Altar, is a real-life mystery about the disappearance of a teenager in a church in Potenza in 1993. The case took nearly 20 years to be solved, in which time her family came up against a corrupt church, organised crime and the chronic indifference of the authorities. It was only when a housewife over a thousand miles away in Bournemouth, England, was brutally murdered that the net finally closed in on a hair fetishist from Potenza. Blood on the Altar was long-listed for the Gordon Burn prize.
Fiction
The Salati Case was the first in a series of crime novels featuring Castagnetti, a bee-keeping private detective in northern Italy. The second Castagnetti crime novel, White Death, was published in 2011. The Third Castagnetti novel, Death of a Showgirl, came out in 2013.
Broadcasting
Jones has written and presented two TV series for Rai 3: Ricchi d’Italia and Cervelli d’Italia. He has also written various documentaries for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4. Blood on the Altar and A Place of Refuge have both been optioned by film companies, as has Jones’s Guardian Long Read about the disappearance of Yara Gambirasio.
Other
Jones occasionally plays for the England Writers Football team, and has taught writing and literacy at a variety of universities, schools and prisons. His passions include Fabrizio De Andre, Ross Macdonald and Everton and Parma football teams. He is a Christian.
Essays and journalism
Jones is a regular contributor to the British and Italian press. A selection of his investigative and opinion pieces can be found below:
