The Mafia Only Kills in Summer () is an Italian 2016 television series written by Pif, directed by Luca Ribuoli, produced and broadcast by RAI. Based on the eponymous 2013 film, also directed by Pif, it was first aired on Rai 1 from 21 November to 20 December 2016. In the United Kingdom the series was broadcast by Channel 4.
The voice-over narrator of the series is an adult, Salvatore Giammarresi (Pif), who tells the story of his life as a 10-year-old boy growing up in an ordinary family in Palermo during the late 1970s. Salvatore's family consists of his upright father Lorenzo (a clerk and later manager in Parlermo's residents' registration office and later in the regional administration of Sicily), his sensitive mother Pia (a substitute teacher waiting for years being installed as a permanent) and his naive 16-year-old sister Angela (a high school student). Part of the family is also Pia's carefree brother Massimo (a Vicebrigadiere forestale or Sergeant in the forest police turning into mafioso), who marries sexy but good-hearted cafe owner Patrizia.
The ordinary events from the kid's point of view are mixed with historical facts, primarily regarding the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), which unfairly dominated the city in that period. Combining reality with TV fiction, there are various storylines related to the Sack of Palermo, to the personal friendship of Salvatore with Boris Giuliano or Mario Francese (both killed by the Mafia in 1979), etc.
The series is set during 1979 and 1980, although within the fiction there are flashbacks in which the narration develops in earlier periods.
Soon after the season 1 finale, Pif declared that he was working to write the second season, and confirmed that it will be aired in 2018.
Interviewed in April 2018, Pif discussed about the possibility of future seasons, because his intent is to narrate the events occurred in Palermo at least until the ones of 1992 (Capaci and Via D'Amelio bombings), as it happened in the 2013 film.
The series is set mainly in Palermo, in which sometimes are also shown various cultural heritage sites, typical cuisine products or suburban boroughs as Mondello. Part of some episodes is set in various locations of the province as Partinico, Isola delle Femmine, Ficuzza, Corleone, the Garcia Dam and the mount Rocca Busambra.
The fiction was shot between Sicily and Lazio, principally at Civita Castellana, a town of the Province of Viterbo.