“This unusual memoir, David MacKinnon’s first work of non-fiction but fourth published book, spans four decades of the author’s life and recounts experiences that could each be the subject of book-length, first-person remembrances, if not dispatches from Home Box Office. These include (among others) his representing a Montreal law firm charged with litigating asbestos indictments of the Quebec government, the story of a New York firefighter friend who lost his life to the cancerous effluvium of 9...