The Rainbow Conspiracy follows theatrical agent Clive Spoke as he embarks on a quest to find the truth about his ex-lover’s early death. Author Stuart Hopps gives us the low-down.
How would you describe The Rainbow Conspiracy?
It’s a gay mystery thriller and love story set in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
How did you come up with the idea for the book, and did you draw on any personal experiences to shape the style of the book and the way the story was told?
I have spent many years in the United States, both as a student and then as a professional choreographer in the 70s and 80s. Whilst working at the Met in New York in ‘82 I discovered that a dear friend had contracted a virus, undiagnosed at the time, and was extremely ill. Then once AIDS was recognised as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a number of my gay male colleagues and friends in New York contracted it, and by the late 80s many were dead. Since then I have been asking myself why this disease, first reported in Africa as a heterosexually transmitted disease, became what many of my American friends referred to as ‘the gay plague’. So, in short, many personal experiences have informed my book.
Are you a conspiracy theorist? The death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK’s assassination, did we really put a man on the Moon?
Yes, I believe I am a conspiracy theorist and I can’t wait to learn more about the Kennedy assassination, now that President Trump has released some of the withheld documents.
Did you have access to any medical data when researching this book?
I had no access to any official medical data, but did a good deal of research and consulted a doctor about my injection theory, and he assured me that needles could become infected in the way I described and pass on a virus.
Would you like to write a sequel?
My publishers have urged me to think about a sequel and an idea has started to develop in my notebook: Clive Spoke and Shirley Morris will endeavour to untangle another mysterious murder, this time set in London and in the world of opera.
The story has a happy ending – was that intentional?
The ending took a while to formulate and although Clive and Shirley escaped with their lives, I left the reader to imagine what might have happened to the villains.
The Rainbow Conspiracy is available to buy via Muswell Press.
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