Bottled Lightning

“L. M. Weeks takes us on a journey of underworld violence, boardroom intrigue, and high-tech advances with geo-political implications. Bottled Lightning is a page turner!”

—Roy Tomizawa, author of the highly acclaimed 1964 – The Greatest Year in the History of Japan: How the Tokyo Olympics Symbolized Japan’s Miraculous Rise from the Ashes

Torn Sagara, an ingenious international technology lawyer raised in Alaska by his Japanese father and American mother, runs the highly successful Tokyo office of global law firm Hilsberry & Carter. His “super-scientist” client Saya Brooks has invented a never-before-imagined process that creates and harnesses lightning, a technology that is destined to replace all fossil fuels, nuclear power, and other existing sources of renewable energy.

When ruthless characters threaten to destroy both them and Saya’s cutting-edge technology, Torn and Saya work together to protect her invention and themselves. As they get to know each other, the sparks fly with electric chemistry. But Saya, whose American father left her Japanese mother for another woman, wonders whether she can trust Torn who has a debilitating fear of abandonment rooted in his father’s untimely death in the Bering Sea when Torn was a teenager, compounded by the disintegration of his current marriage.

After attacks on Torn and Saya, one of which leaves Saya in a coma, and the brutal murder of Torn’s estranged wife, he life-flights Saya to a hospital in the States and sends his children into hiding in Alaska. Tom later learns that Saya has left him in charge of her company. Through a previously recorded video, she pleads with him to protect her lightning invention from oblivion. Another attempt on his life and police inaction and betrayal leave Torn no choice but to find the perpetrators himself, forcing him across international and legal boundaries he has never crossed before.

This suspense-filled legal thriller crosses international, legal and relationship borders with unforgettable characters who are passionate about protecting the planet and the people they love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

L. M. (Mark) Weeks is a Senior Counsel and former Partner in the global law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has practiced law in New York and Tokyo for more than 30 years and served as Managing Partner of Orrick’s Tokyo office from 2007-17. He concentrates his practice on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, clean technology, life sciences, IT and telecommunications asset transfers, strategic investments, and general corporate representation for US, Japanese, and European companies. Mark speaks, reads and writes fluent Japanese. In addition to his work at Orrick, Mark has done pro bono work with young HIV+ parents, indigent criminal defendants, and fisheries conservation organizations. Mark’s passion is tournament fly fishing for tarpon and record chasing. A traveling angler, he has fished all over the world. He was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised in Nampa, Idaho. Bottled Lightning is his debut novel.