The Cyanide Canary: A True Story of Injustice

Book review of The Cyanide Canary: A True Story of Injustice by Robert DugoniRobert Dugoni, known for his heart-pounding legal thrillers, and Hilldorfer, the agent who lived and breathed the Dominguez case, have penned a compulsively readable work that is every bit as enthralling as fiction, yet is alarmingly true. It is a true story of good and evil, greed and its consequences, and an elusive quest for justice…This marketing blurb didn't 'grab' me, but the book being non-fiction eco-lit prompted me to read it. The blurb is intended to catch the eye of thriller readers, and I hope it does in broadening awareness of a serious environmental problem.As you might guess, this book is much more than a thriller to me.For those with environmental consciousness this book is a rare breed of non-fiction, at once adrenalin pumping and an emotional rollercoaster together with suspense and Kafkaesque — enough to drive most anyone up a tree and potentially terrify them. Essentially, the story exemplifies the varying degrees of dark stain in our subjective souls, and the difficulties in dealing with such. And, it does so without the fictive distortions promulgated in the volume of 'entertainment' reading material available.Knowing that throughout human history, civilizations have come and gone in good part due to greed induced corruption and ignorance, and that we are at present teetering on the precipice of repeating such history, a thoughtful reader will see more in this than the story's specific battle. Enough more that they may be acutely alarmed at the seriousness of this aspect's contributions to the ever more likely dire consequences of our environmental woes.As you might imagine, the course of the subject case involved politicians, several government agencies, multiple investigators and reviewing attorneys, and a raft of interviewees and witnesses, not to mention all the laterally affected friends and family. The book includes a dramatis personae listing of forty-eight key personnel, and extensive footnotes to help, but still requires focus to keep all the interactions straight in one's mind. All what is to be expected in a faithful rendering of this scope and complexity, and I thought the book did a good job of not getting lost in detritus too many authors add to spice things up.That doesn't mean there aren't any minor digressions that don't enhance the story. An example being a couple pages devoted to describing Pocatello, Idaho and its origins. Still in all, hopefully the lion's share of the story will nag readers' minds to reread (if necessary) enough of it to understand the serious scope of the environmental problem juxtaposed with human proclivities.A little over the first half of the book is concerned with the incident and investigation, and this is where most of the overarching environmental issues can be gleaned. Much of the remainder of the book is concerned with courtroom drama and posttrial maneuvering through a minefield of legal gray areas, and this is where the reader can get an idea of the complexities in trying deal with human aspects.Within the book there are many insightful passages and statements, such as:"While he did not condone crime born of poverty, he sympathized with many of the defendants who stood before the bench. Given few opportunities in life and even fewer choices, drugs and crime became their only visible means to escape poverty. In stark contrast were the white-collar criminals ... people who had been given opportunities. Their crimes were those of the well educated and well heeled, crimes of greed, arrogance, and a blatant disregard for the rules that governed the rest of society ...""This was business, big business, with a lot of money at stake and a lot of money to spend. Politicians depended on big business and big business depended on politicians. It was the American way.""... Breitsameter had tried enough white-collar criminals to know that too often only the defense lawyers got rich. The victim never saw a nickel."And, there is a good deal of information that too many are not aware of, like:"After World War II, as America’s industry turned from military to domestic production, the amount of hazardous waste skyrocketed. It increased further with the organic chemistry industry’s development of new products like plastics, electronic components, and modern construction materials and their chemical waste by-products, which were not biodegradable and could remain toxic for thousands of years. In addition there were too few hazardous waste disposal sites in the country to handle the waste and the contents; locations and disposal practices of those that did exist were largely unknown. America was sitting on hundreds of hazardous time bombs without any reasonable way to determine where they all were, when the next would go off, and how bad the damage would be."But if the unknown was disconcerting, what was universally accepted as fact was downright scary. The EPA was realizing that massive quantities of toxic contaminants had already been released into the environment and the polluting wasn’t likely to end soon. The primary reason?"Greed."After reading the story, I urge thoughtful consideration of the Epilogue and Afterward. My hope is that a critical mass of people will come to realize that our little blue canoe can not be plundered and treated like a huge garbage dump if man hopes to continue to exist.This book is not only an important read, but a must read if you value your future. The inculcation of neoliberalism in our culture has fostered widespread pleonexia, to the point of laying waste to an environment necessary for human existence, and utter indifference to others' suffering."Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value." ~ Albert Einstein

The book is great! But how did I pay for a book that has no price on the back and is full of typos. Every page has grammatical errors. All I can deduce is that maybe it was an early publishers release to reviewers? Sometimes I see these at our bookstore for $5.00 because they haven’t been through the final proofing. I paid almost 3X that for the book. Something is a bit fishy.

You know what's great when reading a fictional thriller? When you think you have it down, then PLOT TWIST! Want to know what's better? When it's a real-life, nonfiction, true life story! The tale of the Evergreen Cyanide Disaster (my designation) is all at once sad, infuriating, exciting and astounding. It's a tale where the heroes and villains are easy to spot, but the happy ending is anything but assured. When 20 year old Scott Dominguez showed up for work on a non-descript August day in 1996, he told his fiance he was scared. He'd been working in a confined space, cleaning out a storage tank, with no protective gear. And now he was feeling sick. Needing the job and the money, he steeled himself for just one more day of the grueling work. It was one day too many. The Cyanide Canary by Robert Dugini follows the investigation into the horrific incident and the resulting court battles. The book is exciting and filled with detail. Every fact is cited. Hard-to-understand concepts are explained. It's a literal emotional thrill ride, especially knowing it's a true story. The first half of the book deals with the investigation. (Co-author, Joseph Hilldorfer, is one of the EPA investigators.) It gets a little slow and tedious, but legal investigations can tend to be that way. Still, it makes for painstaking reading. The trial portion of the book moves a little faster and has more plots twists than I've ever read in fiction. Dugoni is one of my favorite fiction writers. He does well with this non-fiction keeping it factual, pertinent and real-life exciting. Highly recommended.

This book opened my eyes to the work the EPA does for our country and the uphill battle they face bringing corporations and individuals to justice. Sad that compensation isn’t given to the victims of corporate greed. I don’t think I would have read this book if not for the fact that Robert Dugoni co-authored it. He is a master at making courtroom transcripts interesting.

I have read Robert Dugoni's books of fiction so his name caught my attention on this work of non-fiction. I was not disappointed. This is so well done, I highly recommend it. It really makes you reevaluate your feelings on the EPA and it's function. Add politics to it and no wonder it's a mess. I especially enjoyed learning about various chemicals and the harm that they can do. It fried my brain in parts but well worth it! I admire all the men and women who devote so much time and energy to protect the environment from people like Elias.

I learned so much about environmental law from this book and believe it should be required reading for all US citizens. At a time when I am feeling so cynical about this country, it helps to know that there are lawyers and other public servants working on our behalf to overcome the greed that seems to rule.

If you want to know what it's like to prosecute an egregious environmental case this book is an excellent read. A fascinating and frustrating look at the legal process and how difficult it is to find justice for a planet and her people who are greatly harmed by blatant disregard for the consequences of improper treatment of toxic waste. Thank you, Robert Dugoni, for taking on this topic. Thank you, Joseph Hilldorfer, for telling the story.

I normally do not read this type of book (basically non-fiction). Found this riveting account of the reality of our legal and political system to be very believable, well documented and in all likelihood tragically still accurate today 20 years later.

I have read nearly all of this authors books and love his style of writing and the pace that his stories run at. However I found reading this book a little like reading a PHD on the history of American environmental contamination. Also the abbreviations of the different organisations were difficult to follow. Perhaps just not my type of book content and I have to say that I was glad when the last page was in sight.

I gave this book 4stars because the read was difficult due to the abbreviated government agencies involved within the case. Having said that it doesn't take away the sheer brilliance of dugoni's structure and page turning ability to keep reading on.. I've read most of his books, The Cyanide Canary, is a superb read.

I was attracted to this book because I am passionate about the environment and the pollution thereof. It does a good job of highlighting this particular landmark case and illustrating just what environmental lawyers are up against in the USA. However, with all the will in the world, I could not wade all the way through so much legal toing and froing, especially as it was liberally scattered with so many acronyms that it made my head spin.Strictly for professional environmentalists or lawyers in my estimation.

Despite all the previous positively raving reviews no matter how hard I tried I simply couldn't get into this book. I have read almost all of RD's books and absolutely loved them all yet this one was just not for me. Had to put it down half way through.

Great read. It shows how much it affected people who were involved, even to co write a book so that the truth could be known.