British author Holt explores the repercussions of U.S. interference in Italy’s internal affairs in The Absolution, the conclusion of his Carnivia trilogy.
Do you agree with the claim that your books are anti-American?
Not at all. I’ve sometimes been told that, because I use this dark period in Italy’s history as the basis for my thrillers, and I draw out the parallels with America’s policies today. But actually, I don’t see the books that way—I try to make sure there are voices within each book putting the opposite case, that the Cold War was only won because America was prepared to get its hands dirty. These books are entertainments. The parts based on actual conspiracies I hope will be thought-provoking.
How did you learn about Operation Gladio, which plays such a large part in the book?
Many years ago a friend told me about it over a drink. Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti had confessed to the Italian parliament that NATO had been recruiting and training a massive clandestine army for over 40 years, although he was careful to say it had already been disbanded—something which turned out not to be true. But it was only some time afterwards that people gradually became aware how many atrocities and extrajudicial murders had been carried out by Gladio operatives.
Why did it have more of an impact in Italy?
There had been Gladio armies in Spain, France, Greece, Turkey, and Belgium as well, but the reason more atrocities were committed in Italy than other countries, I think, is that in postwar Italy the political situation genuinely was on a knife edge. The Communists—many of whom were Resistance heroes—appeared likely to gain control of the country by perfectly legal democratic means, at the ballot box. The nightmare scenario facing the rest of NATO was that Italy would become a Soviet satellite state, just like its neighbor Yugoslavia. Then the contagion might well spread to Spain, and from there, France. Quite apart from anything else, how would it work if the Vatican was behind the Iron Curtain?
You succeed in making the risks of the “Internet of Things” terrifying. Can you expand on that?
When I was writing the book, the Internet of Things was more a prediction than a reality. But now, more and more evidence is coming out that the IoT just isn’t secure. Most of the examples of IoT hacking I give in my book—from baby alarms to high-end automobiles—have either happened or been shown to be theoretically possible. So my scenario of a terrorist cyberattack unleashed from a “bot army” of hacked computers is well within the realms of possibility.—
