BLOG TOUR, CONTENT POST - Justice Gone by N.Lombardi JR

WINNER OF THREE AWARDS
2019 AMERICAN FICTION AWARD
NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCY AWARD - Best Legal Thriller OF 2019
SILVER MEDAL WINNER 2019 READERS' FAVORITES AWARDS
Chosen by Wiki.ezvid.com among their list of 10 Gripping and Intelligent Legal Thrillers

The courtroom scenes are wonderfully written...the characters are well described and the author paints a picture of each in the mind of the reader...Strong plot, strong characters and a strong writing style that I really enjoyed. This one is a definite "thumbs-up." Strongly recommend! I look forward to reading additional works by N. Lombardi, Jr.
Kim M Aalaie, Author's Den

One of my favorite suspense novels of the year. It will make you question the legal system.
The Eclectic Review

The courtroom action is excellent, trimmed to the most gripping parts of the trial, with plenty of emotional impact...a fairly realistic portrayal of the way small-town US society works...a fast-moving story with plenty of dramatic moments, and a big twist in the final pages.
Crime Review

                                                                           BOOK BLURB

"When a homeless war veteran is beaten to death by the police, stormy protests ensue, engulfing a small New Jersey town. Soon after, three cops are gunned down.

A multi-state manhunt is underway for a cop killer on the loose. And Dr. Tessa Thorpe, a veteran's counselor, is caught up in the chase.

Donald Darfield, an African-American Iraqi war vet, war-time buddy of the beaten man, and one of Tessa's patients, is holed up in a mountain cabin. Tessa, acting on instinct, sets off to find him, but the swarm of law enforcement officers gets there first, leading to Darfield's dramatic capture.

Now, the only people separating him from the lethal needle of state justice are Tessa and ageing blind lawyer, Nathaniel Bodine. Can they untangle the web tightening around Darfield in time, when the press and the justice system are baying for revenge?”

                                                                          AUTHOR BIO

N. Lombardi Jr, the N for Nicholas, has spent over half his life in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, working as a groundwater geologist. Nick can speak five languages: Swahili, Thai, Lao, Chinese, and Khmer (Cambodian).

In 1997, while visiting Lao People's Democratic Republic, he witnessed the remnants of a secret war that had been waged for nine years, among which were children wounded from leftover cluster bombs. Driven by what he saw, he worked on The Plain of Jars for the next eight years.
Nick maintains a website with content that spans most aspects of the novel: The Secret War, Laotian culture, Buddhism etc.
http://plainofjars.net

His second novel, Journey Towards a Falling Sun, is set in the wild frontier of northern Kenya.

His latest novel, Justice Gone was inspired by the fatal beating of a homeless man by police.
Nick now lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Social Media LINKS...

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nick.lombardi.9400

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6982373.N_Lombardi_Jr

Website: http://author-n-lombardi-jr.com/

The story behind Justice Gone -  N. Lombardi Jr

I can't recall exactly how I came across this story: a homeless man beaten to death by police. What struck me about this incident were a number of details that warranted taking note of. For one, the man was Caucasian, and I had already been conditioned by the news media that African-Americans were the chief victims of police actions involving excessive force. Secondly, the unfortunate individual was not a violent thug nor hardened criminal, but a rather frail person whose only offence was that he was an eyesore. Shirtless, with an unkempt beard, his crime was loitering.  And of course, the manner of his death, being pummeled to death, stands notoriously apart from the usual police shootings.

Eventually, I came across a series of YouTube videos that documented this event. There was a video recording taken from a closed circuit TV camera at the adjacent bus stop showing the beating, a silent witness to a brutal act.  What was more appalling to me than the impending assault, was the exchange of two of the officers with the victim, a harrowing display of sadistic provocation.  There are many versions of the video, one of the more informative can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ariXIEUJkyI

In addition, videos of street protests decrying such police violence illustrated the collective shock of a small town. The town was Fullerton, California; the man was Kelly Thomas. The year was 2011.

Kelly Thomas and his evolution to homeless and beaten
An internet search yielded more videos, more articles, more stories chronicling the event; the press conference held by the victim's father, the grand jury indictments of the police officers involved and their eventual trial where, astonishingly, they were acquitted. The fact that they were indicted and brought to trial at all was a precedent - up to that time no police officer had ever been prosecuted for excessive force in the history of Orange County, a tradition that likely imparted a sentiment of impunity on the part of the accused officers when they were partaking in their vicious act.

The town of Fullerton erupts

This incident was the seed from which my novel, Justice Gone, sprouted. While the real life victim had mental health issues, namely schizophrenia, the character in the story was a disturbed war veteran, a different kind of psycho-emotional disability. Both, however, were members of the homeless population. A large percentage of homeless could be considered as refugees from the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, which Reagan signed into law and which ended community mental health programs established by Jimmy Carter. It began a process of eliminating the federal governments role in mental health. Initially it cut funding by 30%. By 1985, it had been cut by almost 90%. Prison took the place of these mental health facilities, and any intention of saving money was negated by the costs of a swelling prison population. Adding the fact that this money has been diverted to the business entities that run the prison system, adds further controversy.

In my research on the homeless, I found out some shocking facts: that an average of 3.5 million Americans live on the streets. Thirty-five percent of the homeless population are families with children, which is the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Twenty-three percent are U.S. military veterans and twenty-five percent are children under the age of eighteen years. On the other side of the coin, small towns just cant afford to take care of these people without some help from the federal government, and neither can they withstand the social and economic impact of their presence.

Making the character a veteran also raises awareness of the consequences of war, and the importation into this country of a specific type of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, one that should be addressed by the Veteran's Administration. The VA's efforts to tackle this problem to date seem half-hearted, mainly due to a lack of resources. The obvious question is why should that be?

Despite all these serious undercurrents, Justice Gone, as a piece of commercial fiction, is meant to entertain. The novel takes the form as a whodunit that culminates in a courtroom drama, and ends with a chilling finale. In the novel's version of events, the police officers, after grand jury proceedings to placate the public, never get indicted. The reluctance to deal with the matter forcibly by the town council illustrates the political and economic dynamics within a small town, the leadership of which prefers to sweep the whole thing under the rug. The tension between the public and its local leaders dominates the first part of the book, until, in an act of vigilante justice, three of the officers involved are assassinated by a sniper.

Now, public pressure is deflected in a new direction: public safety. The cold-hearted and frighteningly professional manner in which the officers were executed means there's a dangerous killer somewhere out there, and the uploading of the bus station video of the police beating to the internet means it could be anyone who might have viewed it. The desperation of the law enforcement authorities to find this individual leads them to suspect the victim's war-time buddy, an African-American vet suffering from PTSD, and whose whereabouts are unknown, having taken off after the killing of his friend. The manhunt that ensues forms the second part of the story.

Deeply entangled in this mix of chaos and melodrama is Tessa Thorpe, a caring and committed psychological counselor who has had both men under her care. Having gone through the trauma of losing her first patient, participating in the public demonstrations and giving evidence to the grand jury, she anxiously tries to avert a second tragedy. She and her colleagues franticly search for Donald Darfield, the missing vet, in the hopes of finding him before the police do. In a dramatic confrontation between Darfield and law enforcement at a remote mountain cabin, she risks her life to make sure Darfield is brought back alive.

What follows is a publicity loaded trial that attracts nation-wide media. Another major character is introduced, the ageing blind defense lawyer, Nathaniel Bodine, a figure based on a real life blind lawyer that appears in John Grisham's true crime book, The Innocent Man.
This third part of the novel is a detailed look at the American justice system, from arraignment and bail bond hearing to the announcement of the verdict. Included is a chapter dedicated to the jury's deliberation, a drama reminiscent of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men, and indeed I did I watch the film for inspiration.

Once again, I uncovered some disturbing facts during my research. In New Jersey, as an example, 38 percent of the people incarcerated are those that couldnt meet their bail bond. The overwhelming majority of them are guilty of municipal violations - unpaid parking tickets, driving with a suspended license, a few sticks of marijuananone of whom pose a threat. I also learned the strategic role of demographics when picking a jury, how prosecutors will go to all lengths to keep African-Americans off the jury, since they tend to be sympathetic with the downtrodden and the underdogs, i.e. the defendant.

Because this is a commercial mystery whodunit, and not a post-modernist theme on the equivocality of life, the killer must be found and identified, which occurs at the end of the book.

In addition to the social issues surrounding the story, and the nuances of courtroom proceedings with its implications for justice, the behavior of the news media is frequently injected, portraying them for the most part as voyeuristic and manipulative. Everything combined should add up to a broad appeal for those following current events, which was my objective. The first 2 novels I wrote, The Plain of Jars and Journey Towards a Falling Sun, were cross-cultural adventure novels set in Laos and Kenya respectively, but they did not sell well, perhaps because their appeal was somewhat limited to a small market. I wanted to do something of an opposite nature. Whether I succeeded or not will be known shortly after its release date on February 22.

PUBLICATION DATE: 22nd February 2019
PRINT LENGTH: 336 pages
PUBLISHER: Roundfire Books
GENRE: Legal Thriller

PURCHASE LINKS...

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Gone-N-Lombardi-Jr/dp/1785358766

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1785358766/ref=x_gr_w_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1785358766&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

Barnes and Noble: ttps://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/justice-gone-n-lombardi-jr/1128875661?ean=9781785358760

Book Depositor: https://www.bookdepository.com/Justice-Gone-N-Lombardi-Jr/9781785358760?ref=grid-view&qid=1544400889897&sr=1-1

Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/justice-gone/n-lombardi-jr/9781785358760

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/justice-gone

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