Every
other Sunday is our day for Guest Author Postings by mystery writers who base
their stories in non-US settings. We think it a great way of introducing
our readership to new experiences and places. We’re honored to have with
us today Thomas Mogford, a fellow reformed lawyer (but he’s a nice guy) I had
the great pleasure of sharing a panel with a few weeks back at CrimeFest in
Bristol.
Thomas studied Modern Languages at Oxford University
and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Law from City University, London. His
first novel in the lawyer Spike Sanguinetti series set on Gibraltar, Shadow of the Rock, was shortlisted for a
Dagger award in the UK for best new crime writer of 2013. The sequel, Sign of the Cross, was shortlisted for
the eDunnit award in 2014. The third, Hollow Mountain, was published in the UK
in April, and has already been called 'a classic detective story' by The Sunday Times. Thomas lives with his
family in London. www.thomasmogford.com, #ThomasMogford
Welcome, Thomas.
And thank you.
Jeff
‘As safe as the Rock of Gibraltar’ – or so the saying
goes. For centuries Gibraltar has been a symbol of impregnable strength, its silhouette
still used today as the logo for one of the largest American insurance
companies.
But the strange truth is that the Rock of
Gibraltar is not solid at all. Its Latin name is ‘Mons Calpe’, ‘Hollow Mountain’,
as its interior is honeycombed by hundreds of natural passageways and caves. One
of these, Lower St Michael’s, is so large it contains an underground lake, which
the Romans associated with Charon the ferryman, believing that Gibraltar marked
the entrance to Hell. Interlinking these caves are thirty-three miles of
hand-bored tunnels, built to provide defence against the besieging Spanish. There
are more miles of road inside the Rock of Gibraltar than out. In World War II, further
caves were constructed inside the Rock to house the entire civilian population should
Hitler decide to invade (he didn’t – his greatest tactical mistake, according
to Goering). Hospitals, bakeries and warehouses lie eerily rotting inside. The
mighty 1400-foot high limestone mountain has a hollow belly.
This sort of paradox is a regular occurrence in Gibraltar.
The first time I visited, fifteen years ago, I did so with certain preconceptions.
I knew it was part of the Iberian peninsular, and had belonged to Spain until
the British captured it in the early eighteenth century. I knew there were Barbary
apes living wild, and that the British military still used it as a stronghold,
hence the alleged plot by the IRA to detonate a bomb, which resulted in the killings
of three of its members in 1988. Union Jack flags were waved, warm English beer
was drunk, the sun shone. I thought I would be in for an odd, if not
particularly edifying, visit. I was wrong.
The first surprise was the locals. I’d assumed they’d
be Spanish or British. Maybe half and half. But a simple glance at the shop
names on Main Street revealed something different. Caruana, Isola, Sanguinetti…
the most common surnames were Italian. What was a bunch of Italians doing in a
disputed British territory at the southern tip of Spain? It turns out that,
after the British captured the Rock in 1704, the Spanish population literally
fled for the hills. The garrison needed people to service its needs, so immigration
was encouraged from elsewhere in Europe. The Genoese were the Mediterranean’s
most accomplished sailors – Christopher Columbus the most famous – so in they flowed, and their descendents form
the largest ethnic group among the 30,000 locals today.
What about the military? The sight of the Rock
as you approach could hardly be more pugnacious – rearing like a lion against
the Strait of Gibraltar and the flat Spanish plains beyond. Comprising just two
and a half-square miles – the same size as Hyde Park in London – but as tight
and compact as a prize-fighter. The flanks of its bone-coloured limestone are pockmarked
with cannon embrasures; the street names of the city which clings to its side bristle
with military history – Horse Barrack Lane, Devil’s Tower Road, Casemates
Square. On closer inspection, though, the barracks and depots have been
converted into offices and luxury apartments. The King’s Bastion that once
protected the seaward approach to the Rock is now a leisure centre, complete
with bowling lanes and ice rink. Since the end of the Cold War, the military have
scaled down, and Gibraltar has had to find income from other sources. Taxes
have been lowered, high finance has arrived, and the city now swarms with
lawyers, hedge fund managers and online gaming firms.
The Barbary apes, then – surely they wouldn’t mess
with expectations? After all, Winston Churchill promised that as long as the
apes remained on the Rock, Gibraltar would stay British. He even had replacements
drafted in from North Africa to keep the numbers up. The apes are there all right
– you don’t even have to catch the cable car to the reserve on the Upper Rock
to find them. So assured are they of their existence that they make regular
sorties into town, where they raid bins, steal sandwiches from tourists, and
generally swagger about with the insouciance of a bachelor party. And yet… Barbary
apes? It emerges they aren’t apes at
all, but monkeys – Barbary macaques with tails so stubby they were nicknamed
apes. Not only are they misidentified but no one knows for certain how they got
to the Rock. Some say in a hidden underground tunnel from the Atlas Mountains
of Morocco. Others that they’re the descendants of pets kept by the British
garrison. Another Gibraltarian enigma.
And the flag-waving? The Union Jacks certainly fly
liberally – draped from the windows of cheap government housing flats, from
public buildings, from the peak of the Rock itself. Graffiti that wouldn’t be
out of place in Unionist bastions of Belfast colours the backstreets.
The assumption is that the Gibraltarians love
Britain as it shields them from Spain, and that the British love Gibraltar as
an example of the bulldog spirit they hope characterises their nation’s finer
qualities. Yet this has not always been the case – on at least four occasions,
most recently under Tony Blair in 2002, the British government has considered
disposing of Gibraltar.
Her military use has faded, and the souring of
relations with Spain has always represented a thorny issue. The problem for the
British government is the loyalty of the Gibraltarians. According to the UN Charter
for self-determination, if the locals vote to stay British, then British they
shall stay. At a time when Scotland is debating whether to become independent,
some would say that Whitehall should be pleased by Gibraltar’s steadfastness. Yet
the idea of the Rock of Gibraltar being ‘safe’ is misrepresented. The threat to
their existence is what makes the residents wave the British flag so fervently.
Intrigued by the Rock’s contradictions, I
decided to try and capture them in a book. Lawyers are everywhere in Gibraltar,
and as I trained as one, a lawyer seemed the ideal protagonist. Spike
Sanguinetti came into being – and his third adventure, Hollow Mountain, published in
April 2014 in the UK, comes out August 5th in the US.
Sunday Guest Blogger—Thomas Mogford
