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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.
What was your favorite scene to write in
this book and why?
That’s a really horrible question because I
think it’s almost impossible to answer truthfully.
Let’s say I enjoyed the first chapter because
it just began to flow so naturally. The main character, a private investigator
Mitchell Rose, is in his office and he is trying to tell his partner that he
has been called to go to Milan to investigate a case from the 1980s. She is
understandably perturbed, yet he accepts the job and the story begins. He takes
a flight to meet a judge, Remo Rhimare who is heading up a judicial review. At
the same meeting, he comes across an unseemly politician, who he threatens with
a cocktail glass. A beautiful blond woman disappears into the bathroom. I feel
the ball is rolling and consequently, the characters just developed so quickly.
I guess this could be my favourite part of
the book because it was when I really realised that I had something concrete in
hand. I was going to be able to produce a novel relatively quickly without
struggling with plot, motivation or characters too much. From that point, Mitchell
Rose just keeps pushing forwards, like he wants something to happen. The other
characters tend to collide with his will to command the situation. He is
stylised, cryptic, pushing a door open with a gun in his hand, nudging forward.
In the past I have written several short
stories, and clearly when you do that you question as to whether they could be
made into novels. Five thousand words, on any particular subject, is never
going to be too strenuous a task. I realised after the first chapter that
Mitchell Rose was going to be much more than a short story. Hopefully, much
more than just one novel!
I figured that I had come across a
character who was troubled, in an existential way. He is looking to find the
truth, do what’s right, reach some sort of conclusion, which I guess is how I
believe I think we should all be spending our lives. It also emerges that there
is a certain comic element to Mitchell Rose. He would want to be the last great
action hero, an iconic symbol of freedom, but he doesn’t quite make it. He’d
likely misspell freedom or mispronounce it.
When I do readings from the book, I read
most of this first chapter and I also read from a torture scene in chapter 15. In
my opinion, this scene is really engaging because it analyses the psychological
elements of fear and volition. I enjoyed the fight scenes and the scenes when
Mitchell Rose was knocked back by the women he comes across within the book.
The fight scenes are appealing to me as a writer because I get to play out how
I would like to behave in a street fight. I triumph with wit and cunning. Street
fights rarely finish that way.
What I like most today when rereading is
that the book still surprises me. When I pick it up, I have forgotten certain
jokes or descriptions or emotions that I come across. (Alzheimers!). At the
moment, we are working with my translator on the book Italian and as we work
with the phrases and dialogue, new meanings and nuances come to light. I
doubted that would be possible if the book were just a straightforward
detective story.
Mark is a novelist, poet, translator and English teacher. He has lived in Cagliari, Italy for 33 years.
His poetry has been published in The UK Poetry Library’s Top Writers of 2012 and the Live Canon 2013 Prize Anthology. In 2016, one of his poems was commissioned, published and performed at The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, for the anniversary of hakespeare’s death. In 2024, he was published by Pierian press, Dreichmag, Cerasus press and Southlight 36 edition. In 2025, he has been published in the Penumbra Journal of Literature, Rituals, Art at California State University Stanislaus, Book of Matches and And Other Poems.
He is the winner of the Azerate poetry prize and his debut poetry collection, “Death and the Insatiable” was published in September 2025. https://hiddenhandbooks.com/azerate-poetry-prize His first novel “Mitchell Rose and The Bologna Massacre” was published by Wallace Publishing in July 2025.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.hill.3192
Twitter: https://x.com/MarkAHill172207
Web: https://www.wallacepublishing.co.uk/mark-a-hill.html
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mitchell-Rose-Bologna-Massacre-Mark/dp/B0FCMWCW9M/
Good morning to everyone out there. I'd like to thank Sandra for hosting me here. I'll be here most of the ready with pen poised to answer any questions you might have. I hope you keep me busy...
ReplyDeleteAre you planning on writing a sequel, or series of books with Mitchell Rose as the main character, and if so will he be solving crimes in other cultural backdrops eg Wales? Thank you
ReplyDeleteI have almost completed the ollow up book and I'm hoping that it will be just as successful as the first. It's called "Mitchell Rose and the London Bombings" and follows Mitchell Rose through the streets of his London town as he seeks to examine who is really responsible for the terror attacks taking place in the "white world," ruled by the twin white leaders Ronald Rump and Horace Dick (Orazio Cazzio nella versione Italiana). As you may imagine, I have introduced elements of Swiftian political satire into my writing...Sorry, no whales or Wales...
DeleteI enjoyed reading Mitchell Rose, and watching as he navigated Italian culture, especially the small daily interactions that reveal so much about the country. Did any of Mitchell’s cultural misunderstandings feel familiar or especially memorable to you?
ReplyDeleteObviously a lot of the every day misunderstandings and anecdotes are pilfered from my every day life and stories that friends have told me. I think that living in a foreign culture has supplied me with a series of daily tasty morsels, which I am able to rehash and embellish. The corruption is real, the roads are ill-filled, the hospitals and schools don't work. If you're interested in other things, Italy is perfect...#gottaloveitaly
DeleteAs a British person, I don’t think the Bologna Massacre is well known outside of Italy, and certainly the political influences behind it aren’t well understood here. Can you explain how the Bologna Massacre is remembered in Italy and discussed within Italy itself? Is it widely explored in Italian culture such as films, novels or TV dramas? Are there still news and documentary explorations of the tragedy?
ReplyDeleteThank you for hosting today.
ReplyDeleteI’d love to see Mitchell Rose gain a ‘sidekick’—in the tradition of Dr Watson to Sherlock Holmes or Lewis to Inspector Morse. Is this something you’d consider as the author? And if that partner were a strong female character, how do you think Mitchell would respond to working closely with her
ReplyDeleteInitially when I published the book I was a little worried about the male centred narrative of the book. Jokingly, I said that it was alittle James Bond crossed with Alan Partridge. Fortunately, most of the feedback from female friends has been positive. I think that's because the women in the story always seem to be one step ahead of Mitchell in terms of perception and understanding.
DeleteYour suggestion is really good, though I'm not really happy with the lady playing the sidekick, as such. Maybe, she could just understand everything so much better than him, and render him redundant. At that point, I might just write female detective novel.
It's fun watching a character as confident as Mitchell when he's a bit lost as he adjusts to life in Italy — those moments where he’s out of his depth are some of the most relatable. What interests you most, as the author, about writing a character who’s a ‘fish out of water’ in a new country?
ReplyDeleteI think there are two ways of responding to a foreign culture/language. You either say OOO, that's interesting or you say OOO, I don't like that, it's wrong. As strange as it might seem, as a teacher of language and communication, I favour the first approach. Mitchell Rose tries to get the culture to fit his own mind scheme and suffers as the realities do not play out the way he had imagined. There are no great differences in culture between most European countries. It's' not like Europe/Asia or USA/Africa. I still find it in comprehensible how befuddled people become when the rules are changed just a little bit. I just went swimming in the Med on 21 November, and there are grown men screaming at me that I am wrong, I have broken the rules, I will catch a fever and die.
DeleteWho are the worst learners of languages? Engineers, doctors, lawyers and teachers. Why? Because they have a pre-established mental scheme that does not allow them to live the pragmatic nature of the discourse in which they are engaging.
When writing about another culture, authors can easily slip into stereotypes or familiar tropes. Was this something you were especially mindful of when creating Mitchell Rose, and were there particular stereotypes or character arcs you deliberately avoided? I enjoyed all the little references to Italian culture that brought the story to life.
ReplyDeleteThe other day I was doing a reading and we were sidetracked into discussing the nature of local Sardinian politics. I had not wanted to speak on this subject as the book is 95% fiction and I am not an expert. You might imagine from reading the book that my opinion of Italian politics is not particularly positive. Then I realised that there were a couple of politicians in the audience, along with the families of other Italian politicians. Later, I sent a series of text msgs to apologise for my ourspokeness and I received unanimous responses. I was told that I was right and I'd interpreted the situation perfectly. If there are other stereotypes you spotted, tell me.
ReplyDeleteWhat inspired you most?
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by stories of the time and the experience of working with so many judges who had worked so hard try to understand who was actually behind the massacre. I love creating stories and this piece of modern Italian histort stimulated me to write something that I think is really valuable.
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