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Beneath the Clouds: The Struggle for Truth and Justice Can Turn Deadly
Beneath the Clouds is a story of how people, acting collectively, can defeat tyranny. It is more than an action political thriller. This is a book about resistance to despotism. It is a call to arms.
320 pages, Paperback
Published August 8, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 16, 2018
Christopher Black Beneath the Clouds: The Struggle for Truth and Justice Can Turn Deadly.
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!
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!
September 16, 2019
This is a fast paced story with lively dialogue and believable characters.
It is about average people trying to do the right thing at great personal risk - just because it IS the right thing.
Although their ultimate triumph is derailed in ways that will be familiar to most readers, their commitment to continue fighting the good fight resonates with us all.
It is about average people trying to do the right thing at great personal risk - just because it IS the right thing.
Although their ultimate triumph is derailed in ways that will be familiar to most readers, their commitment to continue fighting the good fight resonates with us all.
June 23, 2020
A great page turner read of how forces in today’s world are really at work if you try taking them on. The author ,from the life he has known ,has truly experienced such similar events so to make them seem very real . A great exciting read for those who wonder what is happening under the surface to make the history making of today’s events when protection of the official line has become the paramount task.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews