Scardovi-Stitch, a Professor with a Fondness for Mysteries

He has completed a degree in Economics at Bologna and an MBA at Clemson University, he teaches financial markets at Bocconi and he is a strategic consultant for large Italian and international groups. And yet... he still has a passion for the humanities. "At university I registered for philosophy to follow my passions," says Claudio Scardovi, who writes under the penname John Stitch. He has just published his second book La sostanza del bianco (The Essence of White, Il Sole 24 Ore Editore). "But then I changed departments because of the lack of career opportunities that philosophy offered," he continues. An passion for writing – and especially mystery novels – is often a juvenile pursuit, but Scardovi's 'literary' beginnings were quite different. "I started with articles, essays and technical manuals," he explains, "like a manual on risk management and one on the future of banks. But then a turning point came when I decided to put into practice an idea I had had for 15 years, talking about the financial world in a the form of a novel, a genre that doesn't have a tradition in Italy."

His inspiration was the collapse of Lehman Brothers, where Scardovi worked and therefore felt even more involved. "I decided to write my first non-technical book," says Scardovi-Stitch, "a financial thriller taking place in 2008, the annus horribilis of the financial world. It was called Lupi & Husky, and the setting is a global plan hatched to blow up one of the biggest investment banks in the world." The book was met with critical and commercial success, even if, as Scardovi clarifies, "some parts are very technical. But students liked it." Is it really as easy as it seems when listening to Scardovi, to go from writing textbooks or professional books to a very different literary genre? "Writing a novel is much more difficult," he says, "because in a manual it moves forward with simple deductive reasoning, but in a novel you have to think about narrative transitions and the story. In addition, the fact that it's a mystery complicates everything, since the plot needs to be interspersed with a series of clues that help you come to the conclusion. One important thing for writing is to be an avid reader."

And Scardovi is just that, with a particular passion for Agatha Christie. And then, just as important, is knowing the context you're writing about, and the world of finance for him is an open book: "The book that was just published was written in 2009 and many of the things included in it have unfortunately come true. The main point is a big international conspiracy to make the euro and its related monetary system collapse, and it's easy to find a few facts in the plot that unfortunately actually happened during the current crisis. I'm definitely not a prophet, though," the writer-professor laughs. "But many things could be read in the facts. And other people had anticipated them too."

If we want to get to know the financial and economic scene of the future, should we read John Stitch's next book? "I've already written the third book," he says, "and it will take place during the Expo in Milan and even at Bocconi, when the crisis is already over. Milan has become a hunting ground for Asian investors, especially the Chinese, who turn to our market after a real estate bubble in China. It's a possible scenario, everything I write is based on economic reasoning. And the title? It's still temporary, but it will probably be Il formichiere del diavolo (The Devil's Anteater)."

This is a mystery as well, full of intrigue and plot twists. "You write to tell a story and to have fun and the form of the mystery is also helpful. As an Agatha Christie character once said, 'Crime doesn't pay, but it does teach.'"