Montanamo By Christopher Leibig

Chris is a trial lawyer and partner at the criminal defense law firm of Zwerling, Leibig, and Moseley in Alexandria, VA. Along with Montanamo and Saving Saddam, Chris has also published short stories including Coldcocked (Skyline Magazine), Secret Admirer and Fly (Cynic Magazine). He is working on his third current events novel, The Human Number, which is likely to be released in early 2012.

Learn more about Christopher Leibig and Zwerling, Leibig,
and Moseley: http://www.zwerling.com/

At the end of 2005, as the war in Iraq goes from bad to worse, the trial of Saddam Hussein with its foregone conclusion flies largely under the radar of international scrutiny. When thirty-six-year-old public defender Malcolm X Heinlein is asked to travel to Iraq to represent a little-known co-defendant at the trial, he understands he is being chosen because of his strange pedigree and, possibly, his conspiratorial history with Ayesha Qaddafi, trial counsel for Saddam and the thirty-year-old daughter of Muammar Qaddafi. Malcolm and his friend and mentor Sophia soon learn that their client, Mohamed Jabbouri, is a former Saddam body double who wants desperately to testify against Saddam in exchange for freedom for himself and his family in America. At first, arranging Jabbouri s deal seems almost too easy. But the murder of Malcolm s Iraqi co-counsel on Baghdad s streets, the near murder of Sophia, and shadowy threats from an unknown source prove that Jabbouri s life, and Malcolm s, are far from secure. Malcolm realizes that his mission requires him to confront the very heart of the hypocrisy of the Hussein trial Chief Investigating Judge Ra id al-Juhi. Al-Juhi presents as a perfectly self-interested Iraqi ladder climber, but Malcolm learns that his motives are more complex than the Americans or Ayesha could ever have imagined. Malcolm also asks himself a key question which everyone else seems to be ignoring why would the Americans want Saddam dead? With help from Ayesha, an alcoholic British reporter, and Saddam himself, Malcolm slowly begins to take in the full conspiracy underlying the trial, and chooses to risk everything to save his client s life. In a dramatic endgame culminating with the famous cell phone video of Saddam s execution, Malcolm learns that Ayesha Qaddafi s cryptic warning could not have been more accurate Nothing is what it seems in the matter of Saddam Hussein.

"It isn’t hard to get swallowed up in Leibig’s tidal wave of intrigue that opens like a John Grisham novel but quickly diverges, swept beneath an undertow of conspiracy that would give Oliver Stone a run for his money. Leibig skirts the line between action/thriller and international courtroom drama in his debut novel, Saving Saddam, and even where the balance shakes a bit, Leibig’s talent for storytelling and his keen insight on the source material make this book a fun, frightening, and gripping read." -Eric Jones, BookReview

Read the full review on BookReview

"THE TUMULTUOUS trial and chaotic execution of Saddam Hussein were so surreal that, at times, they seemed to be chapters straight out of a novel. So it should come as no surprise that Chris Leibig, an attorney with an Alexandria-based law firm, has written a new legal thriller set in Hussein’s murky final days. Leibig’s novel, “Saving Saddam,” follows the life of Malcolm X Heinlein, a public defender in his mid-30’s who is chosen to represent one of Hussein’s former body doubles. Heinlein meets with Ayesha Qaddafi, the lawyer and daughter of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi who was to have represented Hussein, and uncovers a political controversy that eventually leads him to risk his own life for his client. "-By David Schultz, The Connection

Read the full interview at Arlington Connection

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Artnik Books is a well-established imprint, specialising in popular culture. While they are best known for their rock music, football and film biography series, they also publish general lifestyle titles. Artnik’s popular non-fiction titles include biographies of Angelina Jolie, Jude Law, books on rock bands including Coldplay and Green Day, and biographies of many sports celebrities. They launched their fiction line in 2008 with Leibig’s first novel, Saving Saddam.

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