Love and The Power

Rating:
Summary: A good man who is also a ruthless criminal
Review: This book is about power, not political power, but the kind that emanates from having money. The main character (John Forbes) is a career criminal who was born into the lower class of British society. Very early in his life, he learned how to steal and most importantly, how to sell off the stolen property. While serving a jail sentence, John encounters some other criminals and he forms his preliminary organization. They are drug importers at the time when British society first became mass consumers of marijuana.
Starting from this base, his group branches out into many other areas, and they begin to invest their money in legitimate enterprises. After buying the estate where his mother works as a maid, John marries the daughter of the former owner. He also has a long-term mistress, but he never really gets that close to either of them. Unlike the characters in other novels featuring leaders of organized criminal organizations, he is not a liar, openly telling both women in his life that he is a criminal.
John is also very ruthless, two members of his gang are ruthless killers, and he has them kill a member of his gang who is also his best friend. He has a close relationship with his son, but all of that falls apart when his sons becomes ill and learns that his father is the head of a criminal organization. His wife also finds out about the mistress and he loses all three. John is a complex character, in many ways he is a good, honest man. There is no question that he could have been successful at almost anything he tried. However, he is fundamentally a criminal and that is what he will always be. He even considers his time spent in jail to be nothing more than one more cost of doing business. In the end, his life is violently terminated, and he dies friendless, with many people relieved that he is dead.
Forbes is a very interesting and complex character, in so many ways he is an honest and honorable man. It is these qualities that allow him to develop the loyalty that he needs to expand his organization. He is also ruthless, while in prison, he takes over the underground organization and has the penis of another inmate cut off when he rejects John's leadership. However, while he has many people killed, it is always for reason and never out of spite or malice. The author also spends a great deal of time developing the background necessary to explain the business side of Forbes' business ventures. I enjoyed the book immensely, it kept my attention, and I thought the ending was appropriate, although it was not a happy one.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging adventure story
Review: As a young man, John Forbes discovers the joys of crime. Starting as a thief, he graduates to drug dealing. His dream, however, never changes--he wants to build something big, something powerful--an invisible company worth billions that he can control. Together with a disgraced Danish industrialist, Erick Elgberg, Forbes works to see make his dream come true pumping funds from his drug business and other criminal and semi-criminal activities into the takeover of legitimate businesses. As they reach toward their goals, they become so large and powerful that even Britain's government becomes afraid to take on the invisible company.

LOVE AND THE POWER tells the story of these two men--and their various loves--as they climb to the top of the world of business--both legal and extra-legal. A criminal life can be very attractive, with money, beautiful women, and the goal of power. But criminals always have to worry about the police--and about being betrayed by one of their own. With their increase in power, Elgberg and Forbes develop enemies. Even their own relationship is fraught with danger as each knows enough about the other to destroy them.

Author J. Eidemak makes the world of financial dealings and mis-dealings interesting and entertaining. Both Forbes and Elgberg are interesting and sympathetic characters, despite their criminal activities. Their support for their fellow criminals, deep affection toward their families, and strangely consistent moral beliefs engage the reader. I did find the role of Paul, the jailed bank manager, a bit hard to swallow, but that didn't keep me from completely enjoying this page-turning adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Behind the Scenes of a Criminal Empire
Review: Author John Eidemak describes a world of love, greed, wealth and crime that few people ever know in his latest novel Love and the Power. This engaging novel goes behind the scenes of "legitimate" businesses to men and women who build their fortunes unscrupulously.

Having grown up in poverty John Forbes vowed to take control of his destiny and sought out a rewarding future. Forbes' potential career was very different from that of his school friends who were: serving their country in the Army, becoming a barrister and joining the Estate Office where his late father worked. He would devote his life to becoming rich. Forbes began his life as a thief at a young age when he lifted an antique gun during a school fieldtrip. His self-taught, successful career skyrockets when a man purchases his entire loot and helps him find profitable targets.

Despite his precautions, John lands in prison at age 24. He uses the time spent to mastermind a new career as a legitimate businessman. Choosing business partners from the inmates around him, John plays upon their fear, greed and loyalty to build a multi-national "Invisible Company". But when the only thing that matters is gaining wealth and power, values and relationships are compromised.

Love and the Power follows the lives of career thieves and regular families in a world where intelligent criminals connect with multi-national companies. Deception is the way of life and the key to survival is knowing who to trust.


Rating:
Summary: Obsession and its sequelae
Review: John Eidemak knows how to write. Though not a primarily novelist (his career has been in business), with LOVE AND THE POWER he proves that his business years served as an apropos internship to enter the field of writing fiction. This novel is long and requires much concentration to extract all of the niceties of plot interweaving and character development, but Eidemak helps the reader along with his very comfortable style of short paragraphs and chapters.

He has created a character by the name of John Forbes who may just become a byword for the obsessive wealth procurer. There is no limit to what Forbes will do to achieve his goal of wealth. And in taking the brave stance to focus a big book on a character with such obsession, Eidemak steps into the ring of novelists that confront the grit of the rich and famous - not a popular choice for main characters, but certainly a worthy one.

Keep your eye on this writer: he has the skills of a fine storyteller and with more books under his belt to polish his skills as a wordsmith, he stands to become a formidable force in the field of fiction! Grady Harp, November 2004


Rating:
Summary: Illuminating, insightful, and thrilling all at the same time
Review: Love and the Power is a beautifully written novel that takes us into the world of a criminal mastermind and his network of aides, accomplices, and victims. John Eidemak has an intimate knowledge of the world of corporate finance, and this knowledge forms a solid foundation upon which Eidemak builds an insightful and truly exceptional story of greed and its consequences.

John Forbes grew up in the shadows of Cerne Estate, where his mother worked as a housekeeper following the death of John's father and the family's resulting financial struggles. Young John dedicated himself to acquiring wealth and power, dreaming of the day when he could buy Cerne Estate and marry the young Lady Carven. At fifteen, he steals an antique handgun and learns that crime seemingly does pay; thus begins his life of crime. John Forbes is no common criminal, however. During a period of imprisonment at age 24, Forbes puts together his master plan for the future. The trafficking of hash into England establishes a monetary foundation for his efforts, but Forbes concentrates on the takeover and exploitation of different companies - oftentimes looting them of their assets and then leaving some other poor dopes holding the empty bag - in almost no time at all, Forbes has put together an invisible yet gigantic network of holdings. He surrounds himself with men and women capable of carrying out his orders, ascertaining timely financial moves, deeply burying Forbes' as well as their own involvement in the criminal enterprise, and dealing with uncooperative parties who pose a danger to the Company.

To some degree, Love and the Power is actually the story of three men. Alongside John Forbes, we also follow the lives of Erick Elgberg, one of Forbes' most trusted associates, and Paul Dockett, the victimized scapegoat of one of Forbes' many deals. Elgberg makes for an interesting contrast with his boss; both are extremely intelligent, power-hungry, unscrupulous men who come together via different directions in life, but Elgberg proves unwilling to take the sort of extreme actions Forbes sometimes insists upon in order to protect himself and the Company. Paul Dockett is in many ways the lynchpin of the story; this previously honest bank manager was exploited by representatives of the Company and left to take the fall for his elusive associates. The Company used their influence to make his time in prison as palatable as possible and even took care of his wife while he was imprisoned, but any loyalty Dockett still feels to the men responsible for his downfall is threatened when he learns the extent of his wife's involvement with them.

As the novel progresses, we learn the stories of these three key men and watch as their lives eventually touch and become entwined with one another. Eidemak's writing boasts an impressive degree of insight into the lives of these characters; they may be cold, ruthless criminals on the outside, but each of these men is very human indeed - particularly John Forbes, whose personal problems make him an extraordinarily human character. Forbes definitely has a heart, one which can easily be broken by marital problems and, most poignantly, by the illness of his beloved son. It is hard not to like John Forbes, especially when he begins to long for a life of legitimacy and self-respect. Elgberg does not display the pathos or emotional depth of Forbes, but he is a striking character I had trouble figuring out to my satisfaction. Dockett comes to define the role of victim, and he develops into a character obsessed with outrage and revenge against those who had ruined his life. Minor characters are drawn with great care and realism, as well, each one adding a source of richness and depth to an altogether impressive novel.

Don't worry if you are unfamiliar with the nuances of corporate takeovers, business fraud, and similarly sundry issues of illegality committed on a large commercial scale, as Eidemak's elucidation of Forbes' grand schemes is just as impressive as his delineation and development of his vivid characters. Love and the Power proves to be an unqualified success whichever way you choose to look at it. A basic understanding of Forbes' business life is necessary in order to come to terms with the man he becomes in his private life. The two halves can be hard to reconcile into one man, yet this is often true of even the most notorious of criminals. Forbes makes for a truly fascinating character study.

One inevitably must wonder how a book such as this will end; in far too many cases, wonderful reads have been ruined by disappointing conclusions. Love and the Power, I am happy to say, features an ending more than worthy of the literary magic that has come before it. I for one was surprised and quite taken away by the climactic few moments of the story; thus, while I have now put the completed book down, I know I will carry this novel around with me - inside my head - for some time to come.

Rating:
Summary: Power,Power,Power
Review: reading a Book about the Highs&Lows of Being Greedy&Ruthless oh that always makes for a Great read&this Book is no different. John Eidemak brings a Must have read on the Rise&Fall of a Cat that lived high on the Hog&when he fell He fell hard as well. takes you all through His Journey. timeless Book.

Rating:
Summary: Monumental
Review: The first couple of chapters in John Eidemak's "Love and The Power" introduce us to Paul and Ann Dockett, an English couple of above average means thanks to Paul's job as a bank manager for the now infamous BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) financial institution. You remember BCCI; it was a central component of the huge savings and loan implosion back in the early 1990s that cost American taxpayers billions in bailout money. Many big name people were involved in this scandal, people that worked hard behind the scenes to avoid indictment and conviction. Paul Dockett, as we learn from Eidemak's story, is not one of these big fishes. He's just a guy who got in over his head when a con man named Aaron Nicholstein set him up to take a fall for shady bank loans. As the authorities whisk Paul away to jail, a man named Erick Elgberg offers his wife Ann a job ferrying large amounts of cash around Europe. It turns out that Elgberg is only the point man for a powerful figure named John Forbes, a man who runs a vast criminal empire that took nearly forty years to build. "Love and The Power" devotes most of its 465 pages to tracing the rise and fall of a powerful and ruthless underworld figure.

It all started in the 1950s when John Forbes realized his single mother toiled too hard as a servant for a wealthy British family. Angered that the aristocratic Carvens have everything handed to them on a silver platter merely because of a title, Forbes decides that a life of crime is the best way to rise in society. He lifts an antique pistol from a museum and sells it to a fence by the name of Arthur Black for a couple of hundred pounds, thus beginning a career that will see his net worth soar into the billions. Forbes quickly moves into burglary, stealing valuable art objects at the behest of the knowledgeable Black. John becomes so successful that he must learn a thing or two about the legitimate business world in order to set up a front operation--in this case a toy import business--to hide his ill-gotten gains. A further effort to establish respectability by marrying the Carvens beautiful daughter, Lady Catherine, nearly falters when the police pinch him on an auto theft charge. Rather than let prison break him, Forbes embarks on more ambitious plans by setting up a criminal network involving drug smuggling. As the pages fly by, John's "Invisible Company" grows in size and scope, hampered only by occasional setbacks inherent in any unsavory venture as well as personal problems involving Catherine and his son Michael.

Simultaneously, Eidemak examines Erick Elgberg. A Danish entrepreneur who started out in life as a frivolous playboy, Elgberg first makes his mark by forming the largest clothing conglomerate in Denmark, a consortium of interests named GIANT. Unfortunately, in an effort to buy up the stock of a larger company, Elgberg and his associates fail to disclose crucial information necessary to carry off the deal. In come the lawyers and the authorities, and GIANT collapses amidst a flurry of fraud charges and prison sentences for Elgberg and his partners. Disgraced by the scandal, Elgberg nonetheless ends up back in business after a prison job places him in a small company teetering on the brink of insolvency. The Dane convinces the owner to sell out and, through another small piece of luck, manages to turn his stake into a steady career as a corporate liquidator. It's illegal, for the most part, but Elgberg stifles his conscience for the sake of his own financial future as well as for his wife Andrea. Soon, Elgberg falls into orbit around John Forbes. Forbes sees Elgberg as the perfect man to help him turn his empire legit, and Elgberg likes the money and power he gains from associating with Forbes. But Paul and Ann Dockett, from way back at the beginning of the book, throw a wrench in the two men's plans for global financial dominance.

Eidemak's book is a sensational, powerful read. Words like "epic" and "tour de force," as clichéd as those two terms are when applied to literature, kept popping up in my mind as I worked my way through this lengthy tome. I also noticed I began making comparisons to Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," not because of any ethnic connotations--there is nary a Sicilian to be found anywhere in the book--but because Eidemak's novel deals primarily with the pursuit of power derailed by personal tragedy. What you have here is a universe of major and minor characters so well developed that you feel like you know them personally at the end of the story. The author incorporates numerous themes in his yarn, everything from crime thriller to romance to tearjerker, that it simply boggles the mind that one book could contain this much yet pull it off so naturally. "Love and The Power" zips along at such a whipsaw fast pace that it gives a new meaning to the term "unputdownable," and although I did set it down from time to time as pressing personal matters moved to the forefront, I did so with the greatest reluctance.

I have little doubt that "Love and The Power" could attain great popularity with a wider audience; I could even see this book as an entertaining major motion picture. Eidemak is a marvelous writer made even better by his command of the English language, a command all the more impressive considering the author is Danish and therefore must know English as a second language. Too, since I don't know much about the business world, his steady grasp of corporate machinations and his ability to explain them clearly is a great help. "Love and The Power" is one of the best books I've read this year.


Rating:
Summary: Brilliant New John Eidemak Thriller
Review: There is an old saying that crime does not pay. John Forbes set out to prove it wrong. He was willing to take the risks, even face prison, to achieve his ultimate goal.

Humans have progressed from the hunter-gatherer living in caves, to what we are today. During that time, one pursuit has not changed. That of gaining absolute power to do what one wants.

Power gives one the freedom to choose how to exist. It does not matter if you are an individual; a corporation or a government the end result is the same. Control what your world considers is its most important resource, and you have power.

In Polynesia, the one who has the most pigs is the big man. Some societies in Africa use cattle and goats to project an image of power. In the first world, both east and west, possession of vast amounts of money translates into power.

Dictatorships use terror to keep them in power. Terror is an expensive tool to maintain. It does not matter where it comes from; money is an essential ingredient in the arsenal of power.

Power, as an entity does not concern itself with morals. It does not separate good from evil. Those groups or individuals that seek to use the power, make that decision.

The human condition has the ability to choose between right and wrong. This is true in all societies, regardless of their outlook. The path chosen depends on the prevailing cultural climate at the time.

John Forbes' early life was indeed a poor one. In a family struggling to make ends meet; his father abandoned his wife and son. He declared it was an act he would not repeat.

At the age of sixteen, John made the decision to become a professional thief. To gain true happiness he argued, one needed to acquire wealth. This then gave one the means to live life as one pleased. How that wealth came about did not pose a moral dilemma for him.

If you wanted to achieve an aim in life desperately then no sacrifice was a burden. What John would let slip by in his quest for ultimate power over his destiny did not concern him. Gaining absolute power and maintaining control of it, that was the name of the game.

John Eidemak has penned a powerful story of one man's bid to control his destiny. The writing pulls the reader into the fabric of the novel. It is a compelling read from beginning to end.

All the characters are real people with needs, wants and hurts. Not once do they disappoint in their outlook on life. They compel the reader to join with them in their role in the plot.

Love and The Power, captures the intensity of the human spirit, in its grapple with good and evil. It is the product of a novelist who thoroughly understands his craft. Readers, who enjoy complexity and deception, will delight in this fine work.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant New John Eidemak Thriller
Review: There is an old saying that crime does not pay. John Forbes set out to prove it wrong. He was willing to take the risks, even face prison, to achieve his ultimate goal.

Humans have progressed from the hunter-gatherer living in caves, to what we are today. During that time, one pursuit has not changed. That of gaining absolute power to do what one wants.

Power gives one the freedom to choose how to exist. It does not matter if you are an individual; a corporation or a government the end result is the same. Control what your world considers is its most important resource, and you have power.

In Polynesia, the one who has the most pigs is the big man. Some societies in Africa use cattle and goats to project an image of power. In the first world, both east and west, possession of vast amounts of money translates into power.

Dictatorships use terror to keep them in power. Terror is an expensive tool to maintain. It does not matter where it comes from; money is an essential ingredient in the arsenal of power.

Power, as an entity does not concern itself with morals. It does not separate good from evil. Those groups or individuals that seek to use the power, make that decision.

The human condition has the ability to choose between right and wrong. This is true in all societies, regardless of their outlook. The path chosen depends on the prevailing cultural climate at the time.

John Forbes' early life was indeed a poor one. In a family struggling to make ends meet; his father abandoned his wife and son. He declared it was an act he would not repeat.

At the age of sixteen, John made the decision to become a professional thief. To gain true happiness he argued, one needed to acquire wealth. This then gave one the means to live life as one pleased. How that wealth came about did not pose a moral dilemma for him.

If you wanted to achieve an aim in life desperately then no sacrifice was a burden. What John would let slip by in his quest for ultimate power over his destiny did not concern him. Gaining absolute power and maintaining control of it, that was the name of the game.

John Eidemak has penned a powerful story of one man's bid to control his destiny. The writing pulls the reader into the fabric of the novel. It is a compelling read from beginning to end.

All the characters are real people with needs, wants and hurts. Not once do they disappoint in their outlook on life. They compel the reader to join with them in their role in the plot.

Love and The Power, captures the intensity of the human spirit, in its grapple with good and evil. It is the product of a novelist who thoroughly understands his craft. Readers, who enjoy complexity and deception, will delight in this fine work.