VBT: Mitchell and the Bologna Massacre

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This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Mark A. Hill will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Mitchell Rose and the Bologna Massacre is a crime story that explores the last fifty years of cross-fertilisation between the Italian criminal underworld, its secret services, politics and the judicial system.

When Mitchell Rose is called to Milan by Remo Rhimare, a local judge who wants him to investigate the Bologna bombing of 1980, he knows it would make more sense to turn the job down.

To make things even more complicated, Rhimare also wants Rose to rein in his errant daughter, who is becoming increasingly wayward.

As Rose begins to investigate, the two missions surprisingly become one, culminating in a dreadful dramatic climax.

Read an Excerpt

I twitched nervously. The will to move out of there and toward the action was strong. I wanted to be an integral part of the scene that I could see reflected there in the mobile phone. Alessandra raised a hand and made a gesture that encouraged me to stay put. In doing so, she touched me softly on the left shoulder with her long fingernails. Being discovered there would put me back to square one. Robuyuki was gonna get his from Cambio’s guards, but I had to stay still, I couldn’t move.

“It’s also my favourite drink.” The chef offered.

“But you don’t drink, Robuyuki.”

Robuyuki lifted the glass to his lips and forced the drink down his neck, licking his lips with satisfaction.

Cambio had been silenced and we heard the clumped, mechanical tramping of feet as they exited the restaurant. Alessandra heaved a sigh of relief and we slowly moved apart. I poured a glass of Grand Marnier into the glass that I had seized and we shared it there in the cellar. The sense of relief was overwhelming and we hugged each other, but without the intensity that there had been between us moments before. There was still a layer of fear that lay like a film across the room, and that fear had rendered us sexless siblings. Robuyuki knocked on the cellar door and we climbed back up and thanked him sincerely.

Guest Post: 

Topic: Did you have a minor character who insisted on playing a larger role in the story. If so, please tell us

about it. And if not, please tell me how you get the characters in your head to behave.

That’s a really great question and I think I can answer it like this.

Initially, I decided to write the novel in the first person and concentrate on the psychological profile

and motivation of Mitchell Rose, a private investigator, who is asked to re-examine the Bologna

bombing of 1980. He wants to be a larger-than-life character who puts the world to rites, only quite

often things don’t go his way. I wanted the reader to be inside his head and move forward through

the story with him. From that point of view, I was not expecting other characters to emerge as

strong identities, in their own right. I wanted to keep the narration as simple as possible and

concentrate on his investigation.

However, on a fourth/fifth reading I think that the character of Elisa, an Economics graduate who

works in a Milanese bar, comes into her own. She was originally created as a minor character, an

innocuous love interest. However, each time that Mitchell thinks he has things worked out or he’s

beginning to understand what’s going on, she understands the situation better than he does. Each

time he thinks he’s getting closer to a resolution, she is one step ahead. In that sense, she’s a smarter

mirror to his attempts to look into and solve the problems he faces. When he feels the urge to try

and form some sort of relationship, she has already anticipated what he has in mind and has an

understanding that is much more perceptive than any of his instinctive urges to move forward and

bend the situation to his will.

The character of Alessandra, the wife of the Milanese politician Cambio, works the same way.

Mitchell Rose might think he is a James Bond character, but the reality is somewhat different.

In this sense, these two female protagonists play a more significant role, even if the narration

remains with Mitchell Rose. It is the two women who perceive the nature of power, influence and

truth much better than the swashbuckling private detective.

As regards getting my characters to do stuff, getting them to perform, I prepare files on their

physical and psychological characteristics and then I put them together in the novel. They speak and

interact. and things just happen. They might banter, they might kiss, they might fight, they might

storm off into the night or bash each other over the head. Then I come back for a second or third

rewrite and see exactly what has gone on. If it has not worked, it gets rewritten. I am never afraid to

rewrite and throw away scenes that are not good enough. In the past, I have always had a tendency

to wade into the surreal in my writing. I wanted this book to be devoid of imagery or more poetic

elements. I wanted the novel to be written straight and to be as believable as possible respecting the

crime story genre.

I did not have an ending in mind when I started the novel and a lot of the scenes evolved quite

naturally. Working mainly from the point of view of one character, this is a relatively simple

process. There are two principal villains in the story, along with those who aid and abet them. When

Mitchell meets them face to face, there are bound to be sparks. These are the elementary contrasts

that keep the narrative moving forward.

About the Author

Mark A. Hill has an Economics degree from the University of Lancaster and both CELTA and DELTA qualifications to teach English to second language learners.

In 2005, in Cagliari, Italy, he founded English Teachers, which offers language services such as English courses, translations and interpreting. He collaborates as a translator and interpreter with the Cagliari Law Courts, several universities throughout Europe, and numerous private and public organizations both in the Cagliari area and throughout Italy.

Every summer, he teaches English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to Postgraduate students at Swansea University in the UK.

Mark A. Hill’s poetry has been published in The UK Poetry Library’s Top Writers of 2012 and the Live Canon 2013 Prize Anthology. He was highly commended in the 2015 Segora Poetry Prize and was short-listed for the Canon 2015 First Collection Prize. In 2016, one of his poems was commissioned, published and performed at The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for the anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Mark A. Hill has also published academic courseware in collaboration with Delfis s.r.l.

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