Hollow Mountain

‘Hollow Mountain’ Reviews

GIBRALTAR CHRONICLE, 9 JULY 2014

One of the advantages of being a literary critic is the exposure it gives to new authors, especially when they turn out to be rather good. Thomas Mogford was/is one such author, and it was fortuitous that I had the chance to crit his first novel in his ‘Spike’ Sanguinetti series, ‘Shadow of the Rock’. Although not a resident of Gibraltar, Mogford has spent time here and researched both Gibraltar and the Gibraltarians in detail, giving his characters (Spike Sanguinetti is a Gibraltarian lawyer) and setting considerable veracity. So much so that I remember with his first novel feeling that I had actually met the person on whom Spike Sanguinetti’s law partner was based – it took me time to realise that the character was just so well drawn that he felt completely familiar to one who had worked in a local law firm.

Spike, otherwise Somerset Sanguinetti, is the only child of a retired headmaster of Sacred Heart School, and his wife, herself a much loved teacher, whose unexplained suicide has been a source of tension between father and son for years. Their family home is in Chicardo’s Passage, and in town Spike is partner in a law firm with the solid, bon viveur Peter Galliano.

When the story opens, Spike is on the Paradise Coast of Italy, trying to locate Zahra, the wild creature he had met in Morocco and with whom he had fallen in love. He had recued her and brought her to Gibraltar from where she had eventually run off to a dubious life in Malta. Zahra is now apparently ‘owned’ by a known international criminal, Žigon, and has sent Spike a message to forget about her, to go away, and warning him that Žigon will not hesitate to kill anyone who crosses him. It is there Spike is forced to leave his search and return urgently to Gibraltar, where his partner, Peter Galliano, has been the victim of a hit and run and is lying in a coma in St Bernard’s Hospital.

I would love to elaborate further on the plot, which is really rather good, but then it might spoil your enjoyment. The denouement of each of the various strands is bloody and dramatic but satisfying – as it should be in a good thriller. Thomas Mogford’s ‘Hollow Mountain’ is published by Bloomsbury and is another success for this author who was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger award for best new crime writer with ‘Shadow of the Rock’, and has made an equally convincing job of ‘Hollow Mountain’. I hope it gives you as much pleasure as it gave me. Christine Thomson

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, JULY 2014

In Mogford’s breathless third Spike Sanguinetti novel (after 2013’s Sign of the Cross), the Gibraltar lawyer temporarily abandons his search for his lost love, Zahra, when he learns that his partner and best friend, Peter Galliano, lies near death, the victim of a suspicious hit-and-run. Picking up Peter’s caseload, Spike falls into a marine salvage operation run by Mort Clohessy, a ruthless treasure hunter. He also agrees to help a widow, Mrs. Grainger, who believes that her late husband, whose body was found on the Rock by the Barbary macaques, did not commit suicide as the police claim. Meanwhile, Spike receives an enigmatic call from Zahra, who warns him not to try to find her, and a shadowy killer dogs his footsteps. Torn, like the Rock itself, between two cultures, British and Mediterranean, Spike pursues his vision of justice under the torrid southern sun. A descent into Gibraltar’s eerie tunnels leads to a bittersweet finale. Agent: Nicola Barr, Greene & Heaton (U.K.). (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

LIBRARY JOURNAL, JUNE 2014

Spike is still hunting for his missing love, Zahra, but he is temporarily distracted by his law partner’s accident. Thrills don’t get any better than those in Mogford’s compelling Gibraltar-based series; this is number three (after Sign of the Cross). Teresa L. Jacobsen 

THE SUN, 23 MAY 2014

Hollow Mountain – Thomas Mogford (£11.99). Decent Gibraltar lawyer Spike Sanguinetti is hired by a dodgy salvage company after it discovers a wreck full of treasure and finds he is out of his depth. Intriguing story that benefits from the unusual, rather seedy setting of the Rock. 4/5. Simon Copeland

BOOKLIST, 20 MAY 2014

The first two Spike Sanguinetti novels strayed from the Gibraltarian’s home turf to nearby Tangier and Malta, and while this one has side trips, too (mainly to Italy’s Amalfi Coast), it sticks closer to the Rock, concluding with a gripping set piece inside the fabled Hollow Mountain. Mogford writes full-bodied, multifaceted characters, and he’s no slouch at suspenseful plotting, either, but landscape is his real sweet spot. In telling the story of Sanguinetti’s investigation of his law partner’s assault, and his ongoing search for his vanished girlfriend, Zahra, Mogford imbues the tale with the sights and sounds of Gibraltar, a peninsula bridging two continents and home to a multicultural stew of remarkable richness and resonance. Melancholy continues to shroud the charismatic, brooding Sanguinetti, both in the present and the past, as his investigations lead to the mystery of his mother’s suicide and to some startling revelations about Zahra. Recommend this outstanding series to fans of Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy, set in a similarly sun-speckled, racially turbulent Mediterranean locale and starring another darkness-engulfed hero. Bill Ott

CRIMEPIECES, 6 MAY 2014

Thomas Mogford is an author that I’ve been meaning to try for a while but other priorities have got in the way. However, carrying out my resolve to move my reading to other parts of Europe, I picked up Hollow Mountain as I was attracted to its Gibraltar location. I’m glad I did because Mogford is a seriously good writer. He manages to combine tense plotting with excellent prose and has produced a book a cut above the ordinary crime thriller. I wish I’d tried his books earlier.

Lawyer Spike Sanguinetti is in Genoa looking for his missing ex-girlfriend who telephones him to say she doesn’t want to be found and that the lives of his family are at risk. Spike is called back to Gibraltar when his partner becomes the victim of a hit and run accident which may have been a result of him being deliberately targeted. Spike picks up his partner’s outstanding cases which include a missing husband and a salvage company looking for silver bullion in a wreck in the Straits. Both cases lead him into violent confrontation with those looking to protect their financial interests.

Gibraltar is a place that I know little about so it was fascinating to read the descriptions of the baking hot landscape with its lacklustre buildings and slightly bored tourists. The perennial conflict with the Spanish border is constantly referred to and adds to both the tension in the book and the sense of a place brought to life. The landscape plays an important role in the narrative and we get glimpses not only of the tourist Gibraltar populated with its Barbary apes but also of the local community struggling to make a decent life in sub-standard housing.

Hollow Mountain is fairly shocking in terms of its depictions of violence but the author has done well to strike a balance between making the brutality graphic without seeming gratuitous. Although I’ve started reading the series with book three, I’ll definitely look out for the earlier novels, given the quality of the prose. Mogford really is an excellent writer and reminds me a little of another talented author, Adrian McKinty.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for my review copy. Sarah Ward

CRIME TIME, 16 APRIL 2014

When a group of Barbary apes find a severed human arm their gruesome discovery sends shock waves around the Rock of Gibraltar. Down in the Old Town Peter Galliano, friend and colleague to lawyer Spike Sanguinetti, is seriously hurt in a hit and run incident.

These two seemingly disparate events are to have profound consequences for Spike. Forced to abandon his search for his former client and lover Zahra in Italy he must return to Gibraltar to prop up his struggling business and support his injured partner.

On his return home Spike picks up a case involving a salvage company called Neptune Marine who have discovered a shipwreck in the Straits of Gibraltar and are anxious to claim its contents. Matters appear to be complicated by smuggled silver bullion found onboard the vessel but he begins to suspect that Neptune Marine are not telling him the whole truth about their salvage operation. Spike is also approached by Amy Grainger, the widow of Simon Grainger, whose arm was found on the Rock, to investigate his death.

As he delves deeper into the murky details behind his death Spike quickly begins to uncover a dangerous and fast-moving intrigue.

Hollow Mountain is the third in the Spike Sanguinetti series by author Thomas Mogford following on from Shadow of The Rock and Sign of the Cross. Our beleaguered hero is seriously tested in this latest instalment as Mogford appears to gleefully throw trauma after trauma at him. Mogford’s real talent lies in his ability to evoke a great sense of location and history, a skill that he put to use so effectively in his first two Spike Sanguinetti mysteries. The eccentricties and peculiarities of Gibraltarian culture are explored here, such as having its own dialect called Yanito that contains a mixture of English, Spanish, Genoese and Hebrew. Mogford obviously relishes the opportunity to share unusual historical nuggets of information with his audience. For example he explains that the term “pieces of eight” derives from the fact that in the past pesos were made of eight reales’ worth of sterling silver, (a reale being a type of coin). Intelligent, pacey and immensely likeable in its lively descriptions of cultures and peoples, Hollow Mountain is a worthy addition to an already impressive series. Here’s to more stories set in the shadow of the Rock. Giles Morgan

THE SUNDAY TIMES, 13 APRIL 2014

Thomas Mogford is a relative newcomer whose crime novels are set in Gibraltar. Hollow Mountain (Bloomsbury £11.99/ebook £7.99) is a classic detective story in which a lawyer, Spike Sanguinetti, finds himself representing an international salvage company. The firm is trying to salvage lead ingots from a wreck and needs legal help after coming across a hoard of silver coins, but Sanguinetti begins to suspect more sinister motives. Some of the plot developments are signalled a little too obviously, but Mogford is a fluent writer and the book gains from its unusual setting. Joan Smith