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Beneath the Clouds: The Struggle for Truth and Justice Can Turn Deadly Paperback – August 8, 2016
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Print length320 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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Publication dateAugust 8, 2016
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Dimensions6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
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ISBN-106027354313
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ISBN-13978-6027354319
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Product details
- Publisher : Badak Merah Semesta (August 8, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 6027354313
- ISBN-13 : 978-6027354319
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,903,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #10,560 in Political Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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The Bloch’s retain the law firm of Budnik and Conway to navigate the murky world where corrupt cops (Marko) are on the take and a hired assassin (Agius) relates the frightening simplicity of his approach to his violent work: “I do it. I don’t do it. I have no job.” The action is fast moving, provocative, and riveting. At times, readers will feel that they are engaged in a combat zone.
After a long trial in Africa, international lawyer Eiger (Black), the main character in the novel, returns home to Canada to prepare and await the outcome of his Tanzanian trial. In need of short-term work, he is hired by Budnik and Conway, where he worked as a young attorney. Through Budnik, Conway, and Eiger the reader is thrust into a fascinating and shocking reality that Canada is not immune to corruption in many spheres of life including political, social, and law enforcement.
A strong point of this novel is its fast-moving transitions which are easy to follow and make the novel hard to put down. There are many occasions where the detail description of human emotions forces you to reread the passage. Each segment tests Eiger’s principles, but he always defers to Budnik’s heart for the underdog, and he lets him lead the way, even when he uses the Hells Angels to help him.
Beneath the Clouds is fiction where the dark side of our legal systems – both domestic and international - is always present. The rule of law, due process, and judicial independence is ignored and, therefore, justice is often denied, by powerful people, to the accused, who known that the accused, like the president and the general are innocent. To Eiger, this is the worst crime of all, and that is why he defends his clients, even when his life is threatened by these powerful entities who dominate and manipulate our political world, often for self-profit. The author’s disdain for the CIA and American political scheming permeates the novel. There is a constant reminder that there is one law for the rich and powerful and another for the rest of us.
Shakespeare had one of his character’s state ''Let's kill all the lawyers.” After reading this novel, I am sure he did not mean that we should kill ethical lawyers, such as the characters in Beneath the Clouds, e.g., Johnny Eiger an international defense attorney with a social conscience, Walter Budnik, a Toronto criminal lawyer, with a great heart, and his longtime partner, Jack Conway (Black as a young lawyer), who expects laws and legal systems to guarantee the same rights, privileges, and protections to all citizens.
Reading Beneath the Clouds, I am reminded of the jury trial in Twelve Angry Men, Irving Stone’s Clarence Darrow for the Defense, and Scott Turows crime thrillers, where in each case moral and social responsibility comes into question and is championed by lawyers and activists even when their own careers are at risk. Good literature, even fiction like Black’s novel, plays a powerful role in our society. It should engage us, make us think, even when it does not persuade us that justice is always served.
Susan, the legal assistant and Diane women in Beneath the Clouds are classy, well-groomed, and perceptive. They exude intelligence and confidence in their sexuality. Eiger reminisces about a woman in Tanzania, and one gets a sense that this was an important woman in his life, so he refuses to share this relationship with the reader in his book, but he leaves enough to the imagination which allows the reader to manufacture memories of romantic moments.
Susan, Conway’s ex-girlfriend and Diane, Eiger’s old flame who wanted to reconnect are searching for a permanent relationship. They tease and know when men are looking, so they expose the promise that never comes. We have all loved women like Diane and Susan, so I was disappointed that the author avoided describing bedroom scenarios where even elegant women deliver tenderness, passion, sweat, and the enjoyment of uninhibited love-making.
As the circle tightens, when death is imminent and all is lost, Budnik seeks protection from the head (Starkey) of the Toronto biker gang, the Hells Angels, and media exposure from the only journalist he could trust, Eddie Mackenzie. Earlier in his career, Eddie had critically exposed harmful government schemes which otherwise would have never reached a wider audience.
Eddie was ready to do it again, unlike many editors today who are afraid to voice criticism of society’s powerful because they know that their job (and company profits) depends on advertising, so they suppress investigative journalism that may expose corruption, nepotism, and cronyism.
Beneath the Clouds also shows how in the world of academics those who oppose government policy fear being fired, even those with outstanding credentials like Bloch’s. They are often pressured to publish supportive articles and intimidated from writing critically of government policy, or NATO’s participation in American wars, or regime change actions.
I like reading legal writing that is imaginative, questioning, and a commentary on our collective human experience, even if at times, like this novel, it is exoteric. It’s obvious that Beneath the Clouds represents many aspects of the author’s own world of Criminal Law which according to his experience is corrupt and in need of revision. The first few pages reads like a political commentary, but it quickly becomes a tense legal thriller that takes you from crisis to crisis that makes one want to read to the end at one sitting.
If there is a cimplaint, there was altogether too much attention paid to various flirtatons, observations, sexual tensions between the characters. It was a distraction from the real story line that was interesting - namely the activities of Canadian/U.S. security agencies and how fundamental they are to the maintenance of "the system".
Johnny Eiger is a hard-bitten Canadian lawyer. His work in Africa defending a general accused of crimes against humanity has made him bitter enemies. These are no run-of-the-mill adversaries – they are agents of corrupt cliques that reach dark and deep into the very heart of the North American institutions we love and trust most.
Christopher Black’s novel enjoys all the qualities of the best detective and mystery fiction. The fresh touch he brings and carries off so well is that in Beneath the Clouds, the tough, hard-boiled, understated, laconic, unflappable, hard-drinking, single-minded sometimes violent and sometimes sexy principal protagonist is not a detective but a lawyer intent on routing out international political corruption that peaks in the bleak urban landscape of Totonto.
Canadian Christopher Black has chosen to tell a series of interrelated narratives from the all-seeing perspective of the omnipresent third person and this works better than the first person – which is more traditional for the genre -- given the multitude of hard-boiled but very knowledgeable and sometimes sensitive main characters who accompany, support and sometimes double-cross Johnny Eiger on his dark journey. Their dialogue is fast-paced, wide-ranging and understates the yawning danger that confronts them.
Johnny Eiger is not the only protagonist, neither is there only one seductive woman or even a single plot. Beneath the Clouds weaves complexity upon complexity, plays character against character, man against man, woman against woman, one against all and all against one another. Eventually it seems that the world we thought we knew becomes so Dedalian, its people and its institutions so tangled and tortuous that they may be unfathomable. But that’s precisely where the author Christopher Black’s real-life training and experience as a defence lawyer comes in. And it comes in in spades to bring all to a resolution that subtly links the threats, the deaths and the mysteries that were spiraling out of control on two continents.
Or does it? You’ll have to read Under the Clouds to find out.
Canada and the world need a Raymond Chandler, a Robert Daly, a Dashiell Hammett, and “Beneath the Clouds” suggests that Christopher Black may have arrived to fill the void!
In addition to being a writer, essayist and poet, Christopher black is an international criminal lawyer whose experience closely resembles that of Johnny Eiger. If Beneath the Clouds is his way of suggesting that our institutions are not all that they seem to be, then we, as proud Canadians who see our Western traditions as glorious and free, should be profoundly troubled.
When will we see the film? And when will his next Johnny Eiger novel appear? I am definitely placing an advanced order for my copy!
Top reviews from other countries
Needless to say, I highly recommend it!