The Mozart Conspiracy

A CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT MARIANI Q: How long did it take you to carry out all the research for The Mozart Conspiracy? A: It’s an idea that has been in my mind for quite a few years. I’ve always been a big Mozart fan, and while browsing in a bookshop in Bologna, Italy, one day in 1997, I came across a fascinating little non-fiction book called Mozart’s Last Year, by the musicologist H.C Robbins Landon. That was when I started looking at the history behind Mozart in more depth, investigating many other sources of information as I became more involved with it. It was quite a few years before it occurred to me that this could form the back-story to a Ben Hope thriller! Q: Did you have anyone in mind as inspiration when you created Ben and Leigh? Who do you think could play them in a movie? A: Ben Hope is a character who’s been living in my head for quite a long time-and of course he has already appeared in the previous adventure The Alchemist’s Secret. I didn’t write him with any particular actor in mind, although I can think of a few with the right qualities to play him. It would have to be someone very talented and sensitive, able to combine Ben’s toughness and vulnerability. Leigh was a somewhat different matter, as from the very start I had a clear idea of her in my mind. Think about it-she’s dark, beautiful, a singer, Welsh…for me, Catherine Zeta-Jones is Leigh Llewellyn. Q: Do you draw upon your own experiences with family and friends as you create characters and plots? A: I certainly hope none of them recognise themselves in characters like Jack Glass or Werner Kroll! Seriously, I’ve never consciously drawn on anyone I know to help build a character. I don’t tend to look at people and think ‘Hey, I can put you in my story’. Inevitably, you draw on things from your own life experience to a certain degree—for instance Ben happens to have attended the same college as me. But I think that in general my own personal life experience has a limited amount of influence. I work very much from within the imagination. Q: Which writers do you particularly admire? What kinds of books have inspired you? A: I very much like thriller writers such as John Grisham, Lee Child and Stephen Hunter. However, I’m probably more influenced and inspired by films than by other books. I’m pleased that so many readers comment that the Ben Hope books are very cinematic in style, and they can really see the images unfolding as they read. Maybe that’s my love of movies showing through—who knows? Q: What is your daily writing routine? A: There is no typical writing day. I usually find I get my best work done in the morning, although I will often find myself working late into the night and getting into quite a ‘roll’ with it. One of the great things about writing is that you can model your working hours according to other things going on in your life. When the weather’s good I like to spend time outdoors, enjoying the countryside with my partner and our dogs. I’m also a keen archer and have converted one of my barns into an indoor range. Any time I get stuck writing, I can go in there and do some shooting. It’s very relaxing, and also helps the imagination to flow. Q: You’ve had quite a colourful life, with occupations as diverse as shooting instructor and professional musician. Was there any job that particularly stands out? And if you weren’t a writer, what would you most like to be doing now? A: The craziest era of my life was the five years spent as a keyboard player in a professional touring Irish band. One of the nice legacies of that period is that I can tell you where to get the best pint of Guinness in Britain! As to what I’d most like to be doing now if I weren’t a writer: I have a lot of interest in astronomy, and in fact had embarked on a degree in the subject, which then had to be put on the back-burner thanks to the Ben Hope stories. So, in a parallel universe I guess that’s one of the career directions I would have taken. Another major interest of mine is architecture. I would love to be able to design, and live in, a house like the one I devised for my character Philippe Aragon in The Mozart Conspiracy. I have a piece of woodland in west Wales, and I’m always imagining the kind of inventive eco-friendly building that could be amalgamated into that wild landscape. Q: If you could go back to a period in history, which would it be and why? A: There probably isn’t a period in history I’d like to return to for too long! However, on condition that I could return to the present again afterwards, there are quite a few historical epochs I’d like to pay flying visits to, in order to find out the answers to some of the great mysteries of the world. One of those, of course, would be the mystery of what really happened to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart! Another would be ancient Egypt, which is truly a fascinating part of history. It would also be nice to be able to go back and have conversations with philosophers like Spinoza, to chat with Isaac Newton about astronomy, or catch some time with scientists like Giordano Bruno before the Catholic Inquisition burned the poor guy at the stake. Q: What are you working on next? A: The next Ben Hope book, of course! I can’t say too much about it yet, but I think that readers who enjoyed The Mozart Conspiracy will love the next one…