Author: Eliot Sefrin

ISBN: 0-595-37214-7

"Even now, all those hours later, Holland couldn't get it out of his mind, how utterly dark it had been down there in that cellar. He was blind, for all intents and purposes, when that shadow rushed him from out of nowhere. Never knew who or what it was. Never saw it until it was all was all over him." Matt Holland, a 13-year seasoned detective in New York. He was at the top of the heap and one of New York's finest.

"She couldn't stop herself from shivering. Hours had passed since her nightmare first began, but Rachael Cook still couldn't get her body to quiet down. It had been that way all night, right from when that first surge of adrenaline had nearly bowled her over, then all through her treatment at the hospital and the trip back to the 73rd Precinct stationhouse." Rachael Cook, a rookie being trained by Holland. "So smart and brave and caring. So willing to learn and put her trust in him as her FTO."

 The snaps on their holsters are released and their weapons are ready. Will either of them survive this?

There's a shot. "He saw the muzzle flash of his gun light up the ashen walls of the cellar."

The shadow is no more. "He saw the face of the boy, ghostlike and stony in the beam of his flashlight."

The partner reacts. "Then he saw his partner, wide-eyed and gasping, the fear racing across her face."

Where did the people come from? "Then the crowd out on Amboy Street, surging toward the patrol car."

How did he get here? The hospital, with its "sterile, lime-colored hallways" that were "lined with empty gurneys and I.V. hookups." "Then his wife, edging her way in and reaching out to hold him close."

Then, the interrogations came. "Instead of three long-awaited days off, Detective Matt Holland sat in the bowels of the 73rd Precinct stationhouse in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, alone and worn down and waiting for another grueling round of questioning to start up again."

Matt Holland reflects in between the rounds of questions. He was once the 'toast of the town." His picture had been plastered in newspapers and "his family was granted V.I.P. access to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. and they sat so close in the reviewing stand near Central Park, alongside all the dignitaries, so close to the parade that the kids could practically reach out and touch the passing balloons and floats." He remembered the medals and citations and awards. And, he remembered Katie, his wife. Two years now, but "he remembered how Katie was all over him that night, her skin so soft and sweet-smelling, her hair spilling onto his face and chest. And, he remembered, too, how everything seemed so right and ascendant just then."

But, everything wasn't all right anymore. He had shot someone. He had shot a kid -- killing C.J. Johnson.

Now, an investigation, racial politics, and telephone threats would take over his life. Guilt, pity and self-doubt would creep in to take over a hero. 

 The crime scene -- "cops, senior officers, homicide detectives and D.A.'s investigators." "Floodlights illuminated the cellar. Latex-gloved forensic personnel, on hands and knees, pawed the floor for spent shell casings." The cellar, illuminated by a single 40-watt light bulb that dangled from the ceiling, its concrete walls marked with graffiti. In its center, a wooden table was surrounded by folding chairs and loaded with bottles of soda and bags of potato chips. Party streamers hung from the ceiling. Balloons, taped to one of the walls, surrounded a painted cardboard sign. The sign simply read, "Welcome Home."

"Under A Cloud" will have you riveted to your seat. It will take you through a death and rebirth -- of a hero, a family and a city. Truly, a must read.