The Street Lawyer

“The Street Lawyer” could have been the narrator, Michael Brock, an antitrust lawyer who’s been slaving it at the big law firm of Drake & Sweeney for seven years as an associate, with a few years left for him to make full partner and earn big bucks. And it could also have been big, knowledgeable, caring and competent lawyer Mordecai Green whose 14th Street Legal Clinic has been catering to the needs of the poor and homeless for many years. And without him, much of the achievements in the story might not have taken place.

Having noted that, the story is one that highlights the plight of the poor and homeless, living in big American cities in the midst of wealth and plenty. One of the poor and homeless, DeVon Hardy, decides to take it upon himself to do something to force some people to notice, even it costs him his life. He and 16 other tenants in an abandoned warehouse were improperly evicted as “squatters” when in fact they had been paying $100 monthly rent, thrown out into the cold February streets of winter in Washington, D. C. He steals a gun and dresses up to look like he had sticks of dynamite wired around his body, ready to explode when he pulls a wire. He traces the firm of lawyers that handled the eviction, Drake & Sweeney, goes there and takes Michael and some of his fellow lawyers hostage, terrorizing them for a while and reprimanding them for making so much money without a thought for the poor. Wrongly thinking that he aims to harm his victims, high-powered hostage rescue teams are drawn up outside, and at their first opportunity at aiming a shot at him, he is gunned down. Right behind him is Michael Brock that he’d made spokesman for the hostages, and the experience of coming so close to death, of having Hardy’s brains and blood spilled on him, changes him thereafter.

Hardy had brought up the 14th Street Legal Clinic while he interrogated the hostages, so Michael goes there asking around. First he wants assurance that Hardy wasn’t HIV-positive. Then he gets more involved, and either for guilt or something else, he quits his big firm job and joins them. When it becomes clear that those 17 people including Hardy were wrongly evicted, leading to some deaths, Drake & Sweeney is hit with a law suit by the 14th Street Legal Clinic, spearheaded by him and Mordecai. They have to beg for out-of-court settlement to avoid being seriously damaged further in the press. Very interesting reading indeed.

October 31, 2015. Novel published in 1999 by Island Books (Dell Publishing), ISBN 0-440-22570-1. Picture source: Google Images.

The Broker

“The Broker” is Joel Backman, once head of a prestigious law firm that specialized in high-powered lobbying of American lawmakers and politicians. His final deal involved peddling a software system designed by Pakistani hackers to neutralize the most sophisticated but secretly deployed satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder—the Chinese, Saudis, Israelis. After some money changed hands, he is arrested by US authorities on trumped-up charges. The people that paid transaction money for the software felt shortchanged, while those that built the satellite wanted him and the software at all cost. To avoid their wrath he pleads guilty to charges so he could be hidden away in prison for 14 years.

But only a few months down the line the CIA that is still puzzled about the secret satellite decides to get the out-going US President to pardon Backman conditionally. Their plan is to hide him in a foreign place and after a while leak his location to those that might want him dead so as to find out who would go after him, believing those people would have the highest interest in the satellite. Backman agrees to the deal though without knowing why he was being released. He is ferreted to a new home in Italy using two different names. In the course of his learning Italian, paid for by the CIA, we are treated to some Italian art and cuisine and history. He also falls in love with one of his tutors, a woman that later saves his life by giving him her dying husband’s passport and changing his looks to match the photo in it. Unknown to the CIA that are controlling his new life in Italy, he makes contact with his lawyer son in the US who secretly sends him a smartphone with which they communicate. He manages to escape death at the hands of the trained killer agents from China and Israel, goes back to the US without the knowledge of the CIA that had agents watching him, and eventually buys some safety for himself by releasing the powerful software to the US army. In exchange he’s provided two identities, two passports, and a promise to intervene with the foreign powers that had been after his life because of the software.

The story touches on how the CIA relates with the American president and their role in establishing or influencing American foreign policy. A new US president is shown asking the acting CIA director what step should be taken for the best American interest. Then there is the realization that your own American government could secretly want you dead, especially if its laws can’t get you. They can also hide you by giving you new identities, which means what some crooks do in selling stolen or forged passports and such is also done legally. The methods of grooming lethal agents to kill and speak many languages so as to be able to disguise as nationals of many nations comes to light in the character of the Chinese, Sammy Tin. How secret agents go about their job of trailing their targets, being able to shoot with skill, to kill and disappear without evidence is also shown. There is mention of how non-Americans are treated shabbily by immigration officials at airports. Kwytemail is introduced as a public but very secure email system, and Backman’s very hard to guess (and long) password could not be broken even by agents of the CIA when eventually his smartphone is discovered and covertly stolen by them. When his smartphone gets taken, Backman has to quickly learn to use a cyber-café to go online. And the Swiss as being bankers for the world’s illegally-acquired loot also come to play. In all, an interesting and exciting plot to read.

October 23, 2015. Novel first published in 2005 by Bantam Dell, ISBN 0-440-24158-8. Picture source: Google Images.

Man of the Hour

This is a story of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, played out in New York several decades later. It’s the story of the Hamdy family, parents that left the Middle East to begin life in America, mother that held on to her traditional Muslim beliefs and even killing herself to avoid further humiliation, the father that married an American woman afterward and wanted to live in peace; the bitter son Nasser who slowly got entangled with terrorists, and the bright and beautiful first daughter Elizabeth. It is the story of Arabs in America, the ones for peace, and the ones for revolt by violent means as a way of communicating their resentment at America’s support for their perceived oppressor, Israel.

It is also the story of teenagers growing up and attending high school, being taught to think for themselves and make decisions on their own by their teacher, David Fitzgerald. It is the story that examines the nature and meaning of being a hero. And it is a story that throws up the issue of divorce and the fight for custody of kids. Very thrilling to read.

September 3, 2015. Review initially written in 2011. Novel first published in 1999 by Little, Brown and Company; this Warner Books edition being published in 2000, ISBN 0-446-60541-7.

Orimili

A philosophical Igbo cultural story set mainly in the 1940’s. The main character Orimili took this name from a nearby river in the town. He was hardworking and probably among the wealthiest, but his application to join the ozo society governing the town met with some resistance, the stated reason being that his great-grandfather had come to the town from somewhere and not born there. Because of this he’d always wanted to do things to root his family properly in the town.

The decision of his son to marry in Britain without his permission—after he’d begun arrangements to marry his friend’s daughter for him—turned his life upside down. The ozo title was however given to his son as an honor for being the first foreign-educated in the town and more-so being a politician.
It is rather a slow-paced story with page-long paragraphs, 90% thought and 10% action. The use of gods to explain life in the traditional society sometimes appeared too ridiculous. There seemed to be a god for almost everything—the land, river, crops, etc.

August 31, 2015. Review initially written in 1998. Novel originally published in 1991. Picture source: Google Images.

An Error of Judgment

This novel centers around a doctor of a broken marriage who is convinced there’s something bad about him, deep down, an urge to destroy. He tries to run away from himself, first by quitting medical practice, where he sees himself as enjoying the destruction of disease. He becomes a consultant and sets up a night club for lonely people. Again he quits this, feeling he might have been motivated by the same need to cause harm and enjoy pain.

A lifeline plot revolves around the murder of an old drunk woman by three teenagers one night. Afterwards there is a new young “patient” in Setter’s club. Initially Setter suspects him of knowing something about the murder. Later, he is convinced that Sammy was the one who did the most in killing the woman. He pays close attention to Sammy and then gets him to confess his act. He does not inform the authorities, however takes it upon himself to wield judgment—death. First he takes Sammy to France so that Sammy could enjoy himself. He tests Sammy further and realizes that Sammy has no conscience, has no dreams, and could kill again in the right circumstances. He then carries out judgment by advising Sammy to take a certain amount of alcoholic drink and a certain amount of his doctor’s prescription, that he would feel better the next morning. Sammy follows his advice and is discovered dead the next morning.

August 31, 2015. Review initially written in 1992. Novel first published in 1962. Picture source: Google Images.

Mayombe

Pepetela is the pen-name of Artur Pestana, or Artur Carlos Mauricio dos Santos. He was a half-caste Angolan who participated in the liberation struggle of the MPLA (People’s Movement for the liberation of Angola) in the early 1970s. This tale was based on his experience of the struggle. The original version in Portuguese was translated in 1983 into English by Michael Wolfers.

The story highlights the exploitation at the bottom of liberation struggles, and brings about the personalities of the types of people that take part in the liberation struggle, told mostly in third person, with first-person snapshots of the thinking of the key characters: Theory who is half-white and in the struggle to prove his commitment to the black people; Struggle the only person from the Cabinda area whose people were generally seen as traitors. Fearless the commander from the Kikongo tribe, who has grown into an old man of war at thirty-five seeing no role for himself once the struggle was won. The Political Commissar who was Kimbundu and under the shadow of the commander until the commander decides not to wade into his sexual problems with Ondine and then starts resenting him. And so on.

The plot is short, two missions from a base in the Mayombe forests interspersed with the scandal of a leader comrade (Andre) being found out after he’d had sex with a female comrade (Ondine) in the bush at Dolisie. But it generally draws out the play of tribalism within the members of the group, the distrust and arguments about tribal domination and past conquests. During the second and last mission, the commander and Struggle are killed but more in an effort to defend the position of the Commissar: A Cabinda and a Kikongo died to save a Kimbundu. So the message was clear that tribalism was a problem to be discouraged among the African peoples.

August 26, 2015. Review initially written in 2005. Novel first published in 1980. Picture source: Google Images.

The Russia House

It is two years after perestroika. Although the leaders of the US and USSR are hugging each other on TV it’s still cold war for their spy networks. And while the doves in the US government are asking for cuts in military spending the hawks are screaming for more. Yakov is a rebel scientist who wants to expose the defects in Russian technology. When his secret documents find their way to the secret service of Britain and US, Barley is recruited and trained in spy work then sent to Russia to establish the genuineness of the source, because the documents were sent to him to publish as a novel, by Yakov whom he met during a visit to Russia.

Barley gets to Russia and falls in love with Katya, a friend of and his contact with Yakov. After his first trip as a spy he is taken over by the Americans who have more at stake in the secret coming out. He agrees to continue and returns to Russia. By this time Yakov had been detained by the Russian authorities. Barley began to suspect this when he noticed that he and Katya were being watched, and again from a letter from Yakov which wasn’t in his usual style. He works out a plan to save Katya and her two kids and puts this into effect when Katya herself learned in code from Yakov that he’d been held. This involved his leaving the British and American secret services to work with the Russians. Katya and her relations were not detained as a result, though Yakov died of illness. After a year in Russia he was in Lisbon, preparing for the arrival of Katya and the kids to join him.

August 26, 2015. Review initially written in 1992. Novel first published in 1989. Picture source: Google Images.