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.
MAH: I have lived in Sardinia, Italy for 33 years. I work as a teacher and interpreter. I have always written, whether it be poetry, lessons, courseware or angry notes on the fridge to my wife and son. Writing is an emotional release, a way of saying things that you don’t have the time or energy to express during the working day.
What genre do you read? Who's an author you read? Name your top 5 authors.
MAH: What can I say? Shakespeare, Austen, Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Salinger. All writers who wrote like angels and one could only ever hope to emulate, people I imagine I probably won’t get close to.
What book are you reading right now, and what do you like about it?
MAH: Stephen Markley’s Ohio. It’s an immense piece of work, long, detailed, yet completely accessible.
Favorite sports.
MAH: I cycle and swim. I watch soccer, rugby and field hockey.
Favorite thing about the state/country that you live in.
MAH: I have lived in Italy for thirty-three years. I know Milan and I have visited Bologna a couple of times. They are places that I can recount and places where I have sat in restaurants and bars and watched the world go by. Milan is often called Italy’s one European city, a description that I like as it implies that all other Italian cities are uniquely Italian, while Milan is not. Of course, every part of Italy is unique in its language and has its way of fitting into the world.
How long have you been writing?
MAH: I have been writing since I can remember. I recently published a collection of my poems over the last twenty years, “Death and the Insatiable,” which I will be promoting from January.
What inspired you to become a writer?
MAH: As I said before, I have always written. It’s great to create something that people enjoy and praise, something that literally came from nothing.
What is your writing process like? Are you more of a plotter or a pantser?
MAH: I create files on each individual character and then I bring the characters together and see what happens. This book is relatively simple in that the main character, a private investigator, moves the plot forward on his own volition. The assorted characters he meets create the storyline, so I guess more of a pantser, but there is logic in my creativity.
How did you come up with the ideas for your series? (If your book is a standalone, please skip)
MAH: In creating Mitchell Rose, a private investigator, I wanted to describe a man who is trying to complete a task. More precisely, in this novel, he has to complete two tasks. He’s trying to help people along the way, but essentially solve problems and live his life in the most productive way possible. Sometimes there is a net of complexity about him that he doesn’t see. He is devoid of politics, despises extremism or any type of conspiracy theory, yet still wishes to see life in a very political them and us type of way.
He’s the antithesis to multi-tasking. One step after another, he attempts to move forward, gets blocked and then seeks to overcome the obstacle in front of him. Whether this is any different from characters that have been created in crime literature previously, I couldn’t say, but I think that a little bit of the struggle and angst he feels comes across to the reader and this what renders it a little bit different.
I’d like to think that it’s an attempt to tell a story about a man trying to understand the meaning and direction in the life that he is living. In that sense, the novel might seem grossly overambitious. Ultimately, he will remain unsatisfied, but perhaps that is better left unsaid.
The second novel, in which he features, follows a similar developmental pattern.
How do you celebrate finishing a book?
MAH: I review thoroughly. Then maybe a cold beer.
What would you tell a writer who is just starting? What program do you use for writing? What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book? What’s your writing software of choice?
MAH: At the risk of being banal, it’s like a start-up; set yourself goals, work hard, don’t be disheartened by rejection and perhaps most importantly, don’t give up the day job or invest all your time and money in one single idea.
I always look on with wonder when I see those Hollywood films where the husband/boyfriend declares that he’s gonna quit his teaching post for two years and write the great American novel. Without exception, it always a man. The girlfriend/wife acquiesces and agrees to bring up the children and work the night shift as a grinder chipper for the following two years. Inevitably, the book remains unfinished, unpublished, gets pulped. Surprisingly, the great American novel rarely emerges. You might write something good; you might get something published; you might even make some money. However, you have to recognize that it’s incredibly unlikely that you are gonna’ write the great American novel.
Write the book in your free time. See how disciplined you are. You will always need time to find your voice. It’s a bit like going through adolescence, you make some funny noises at the beginning, but most people tend to come through it with a few cuts and bruises, none the worse for it.
At some point, you will understand how much you really want it. Then, you can decide whether to pursue it.
I use Microsoft WORD. Is that allowed?
How do you organize everything and find the time to sit down and write?
MAH: I normally write in the mornings, but sometimes I get inspiration in the evenings. There is a beautiful Philip Larkin quote where he says that, as a consequence of his working as a librarian, everything he ever wrote was at night. He realized that his whole body of poetry has been written after a day at work. That is what shaped the content, rhythm and tone of his poetry. However, he concludes writers should work, otherwise they just tend to get into trouble. That’s something I can relate to. If I didn’t do a real job, writing really would get me into trouble and besides, I don’t think I would know what to write about.
Maybe pushing the narrative works on the page but in real life it can cause problems for yourself and for those around you.
As an author, what would you choose as your spirit animal?
MAH: The crocodile, I just love crocodiles.
Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?
MAH: My wife, Roberta, absolutely. She is always available for a brief consultancy on how my marketing strategy is not at all up to scratch. She organizes my events and pushes me along the straight and narrow.
How do you name your characters?
MAH: I love naming characters. Mitchell is a rough macho name. The Rose is the English Rose, something of beauty and elegance. You can do the cryptic crossword of the other names yourself.
Can you describe a typical day in your writing life?
MAH: When I am working on a novel, I get up early, swim and shower. Then, I work on writing for 3 or four hours, with a break for coffee. In the afternoons and evenings, I usually teach. I come back to my desk the next day and review what I have written and start off again.
Tell us about your current release.
MAH: With my current novel, “Mitchell Rose and the Bologna Massacre,” I decided that I needed a structured approach to writing
In 2019, I was teaching a group of judges and ex-judges in Bologna. It was a state sponsored course that certain Italian institutions organize for certain privileged social groups and during those lessons, we started to talk about the Bologna massacre of 1980. That year, there was a terrorist bombing of Bologna Centrale railway station, which killed 85 people and injured over 200. It was Italy’s most serious terrorist attack. Several members of the neo-fascist terrorist organization Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR, Armed Revolutionary Nuclei) were subsequently sentenced for the bombing.
I did some reading around the subject and decided that the whole incident was so compelling and there were so many conspiracy theories that reverberated around it, that there was probably enough material for a novel.
I have also recently released my collected poems with Hidden Hand Press: Click here.
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/ref=sr_1_1 Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/Mitchell-Rose-Bologna-Massacre-Mark-ebook/dp/B0FC8NBRLW/ref=sr_1_1
Amazon De: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Mitchell-Rose-Bologna-Massacre-Mark/dp/B0FCMWCW9M/ref=sr_1_11
Amazon It: https://www.amazon.it/Mitchell-Rose-Bologna-Massacre-Mark/dp/B0FCMWCW9M
2 comments:
Lovely to be hosted here today. Send any questions u have. I'm flying Rome London...so I'll mag u back when I arrive...
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