The Cyanide Canary [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Joseph Hilldorfer (Author), Robert Dugoni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2004

"The Cyanide Canary" is the riveting true story of a horrific crime -- of a brave young man left for dead, an unscrupulous business mogul, and the relentless EPA investigator who fought to overcome injustice. On a crisp summer morning in Soda Springs, Idaho, twenty-year-old Scott Dominguez kissed his fiance e goodbye and went to work for Allan Elias, the owner of Evergreen Resources, an enterprise Dominguez thought was in the business of producing fertilizer from mining waste. A former high school wrestler blessed with Tom Cruise-like good looks, Dominguez seemed to have unlimited potential, but by eleven o'clock that morning he was fighting for his life, pulled unconscious from a cyanide-laced storage tank and not expected to live through the night. In Seattle, Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer of the Environmental Protection Agency was given the job of finding out what happened to Dominguez and why. Initially Hilldorfer did not want the case, still frustrated by an intense two-year investigation that concluded with corporate polluters walking out of a federal courthouse free. But as he learned more, Hilldorfer, the son of a Pittsburgh cop with a blue-collar work ethic, was touched by Scott's suffering and outraged at Elias's callous disregard for his employees' well-being. Hilldorfer and his partner, Special Agent Bob Wojnicz, joined forces with seasoned Boise Assistant U.S. Attorney George Breitsameter and an indefatigable, brilliant young attorney from the Department of Justice's Environmental Crimes Section named David Uhlmann. Together they would uncover the horrifying truths and build the criminal case against Elias. A former New York whiz kid and Arizona realestateand business mogul, Elias owned businesses that had polluted Idaho with hazardous waste for nearly a decade. Yet Elias never spent a single day in jail, openly boasted of beating the environmental quality regulations, and avoided any significant fines. Would this case be any different? Hilldorfer, Uhlmann, and the government trial team embarked on an epic courtroom battle that would stretch them to the limits. What began as a struggle for justice for one young man became a fight by the EPA for its very ability to enforce the nation's environmental laws and to bring environmental polluters to justice. In the balance was whether Allan Elias would ever spend a day in jail. Gripping, powerful, and compulsively readable, "The Cyanide Canary" is a major achievement in the classic tradition of "A Civil Action," a book that unfolds like fiction yet is alarmingly true.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title refers to the cyanide in a tank that left Scott Dominguez, a worker at an Idaho plant, brain-damaged after an accident in 1996. As in a good thriller, the accident takes place in the first few pages, and the rest of the book is devoted to the legal case that followed. Dugoni, a freelance writer, and Hilldorfer, one of the Environmental Protection Agency investigators in the case, leave no doubt about who the bad guy is in this story: he’s the plant’s owner, Allan Elias, who had a long history of skirting the law in environmental matters. Using the memories of Hilldorfer and others involved in prosecuting the case, the authors build their story. They drive the narrative well in the book’s first half (they’re particularly strong in portraying the personalities of both the investigators and the witnesses in the case), but the story loses momentum when the case comes to the courtroom. The trial is depicted blow-by-blow, and, until the verdict is given, some of the outrage of the earlier pages is lost amid the minutiae of the legal system. Still, this book successfully fleshes out the excitement and the difficulty of prosecuting environmental criminals in the U.S.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* At the core of this enthralling legal drama is a 250-gallon storage tank containing cyanide. On August 26, 1996, a 20-year-old worker at a fertilizer plant in Soda Springs, Idaho, was ordered to clean the tank, which he and other workers believed contained only dirt and water. The worker, who was told he needed no safety equipment for the job, was overcome by fumes and emerged severely brain damaged. Hilldorfer, an environmental-crime specialist for the EPA, and writer Dugoni retrace the EPA's effort to uncover what led to the accident and to bring the responsible parties to justice. Before Hilldorfer's campaign, environmental crimes were largely ignored or, when brought to trial, resulted only in pro-forma wrist slaps. This account engages the reader, evoking both outrage over worker safety and suspense over the outcome of the trial. The authors combine accounts of Hilldorfer's own experiences (he appears as a character in the book) with interviews, sworn trial testimony, court transcripts, and newspaper articles to tell a fully rounded, gripping story of how environmental crime is prosecuted in the real world. The title of the book is especially apt: it refers both to the old miners' practice of bringing canaries into mines as early warning systems of poisonous gases and to the fate of the brain-damaged worker, whose plight may yet save others. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (September 14, 2004)
• ISBN-10: 0743246527
• ASIN: B001PO69WS
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #886,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Law > Current Affairs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book-Tragic Story, September 21, 2004

By 

J. D. Cox - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cyanide Canary (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book. The fact that it is a true story makes it even better. The investigators and lawyers truely poured their hearts into this case. It is written in a way that constantly make you want to find out what's going to happen next. You feel as if you are in the court room during the trial. It is such a sad story and your heart goes out to the injured person. I would highly recommend this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragic book provides factually detailed and great read!, December 17, 2004

By 

Theresa Goetz - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Cyanide Canary (Hardcover)

I bought this book for a friend for Christmas and found I had to go back and buy two more copies (one for myself and as another gift), because I started reading it before wrapping it and couldn't put it down. I won't call this tragic "story"--because the word story implies it is a work of fiction. However, the detailed endnotes based on sworn affidavit, deposition and trial testimony, as well as numerous citations to witness interviews show it is well researched recital of shockingly true facts. Written in the third person, it reads as easily as a fiction novel (including simplified medical, chemical and legal jargon), but it clearly is not. Given the monstrosity of the events, it is easy to understand how witnesses involved in the investigation and trial would easily remembered what they said and saw at the time the events occurred. This is a definite read for anyone interested in a well written and researched compelling story of finding justice in a small Idaho-company based town. The only people who might not want to read it now would be those who don't want to have their holiday preparations waylaid (because it will pull you into the story), or those who are still denying the facts of what happened.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like a good Law & Order episode, April 1, 2006

By 

Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cyanide Canary (Hardcover)

We lived and worked in eastern Washington State during the mid-1990s for environmental companies and both had to take safety classes where they explained the dangers of confined space entries and the precautions you have to take for working in those environments, not to mention all the other regulatory and safety requirements needed for working with hazardous chemicals. We were lucky: we were educated, well-paid, working for environmental clean-up companies with lucrative government contracts where safety was good business practice.

The circumstances detailed in The Cyanide Canary are 180 degrees different. Allen Elias, the owner of the Evergreen facility, was not engaged in environmental cleanup, but working on the cheap trying to develop a commercial means of reprocessing waste. His employees were high-school graduates desperate for a job, with no safety training or understanding of the requirements for confined space work, nor any clue, really, about the hazards of certain chemicals--things Elias did know. Which is why Elias was charged with criminal conduct after one of his workers was injured during a tank cleanout. The story of the accident, along with the resulting investigation, and trial, makes up this book, which reads like a long Law & Order episode, almost complete with the "Ka-Chung" sound at the end of each chapter. As such, it should appeal to L&O fans, or anyone with an interest in how environmental law is being developed.

The weakest part of the book is the beginning chapter, where the authors attempt to portray the events of the accident in an almost novelistic method, including trying for some suspense about whether the victim, Scott Dominguez, would survive or not. After they get that out of the way (more than likely, a suggestion from some bone-headed editor who felt the beginning needed some punch or a grab for the reader), the book settles down into its portrayal of Hilldorfer's investigation, bolstered by all the interviews and transcripts that were eventually used to indict Elias and bring the case to trial. The truly riveting part of the book is not the opening, but the trial, the question of whether Elias will be found guilty, and whether or not he will attempt to flee justice.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, reading it in two sessions during a train ride to and from NYC. It's a revealing look into the legal world, and also an interesting case study between the kinds of murder cases usually seen on Law & Order and the "white collar" crime that usually does not end up in jail sentences for the convicted.