Neville Sarony
Neville Sarony served in the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles in Malaya, before obtaining a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) degree from the London School of Economics and subsequently was called to the Bar of Gray’s Inn in 1964.
Now a well-known practising KC in Hong Kong with over 50 years at the Bar, Neville has fought for clients from the most remote Magistrate’s Court in Hong Kong up to the Privy Council, defending clients indicted for treason, murder, in fact, every serious offence in the criminal calendar, mostly at the Old Bailey. He also represents brain-damaged babies and quadriplegics in clinical negligence claims, combining his civil and criminal practices and relishing the constant challenge.
Neville’s vast legal experience began in the 1960s when he established the first foreign law practice in Nepal, followed by a practice in London, before moving to Hong Kong in 1985. It includes being Recorder of the Crown Court of England and Wales (1992-2005); member of the Chief Justice's Special Committee on Legal Aid; First Chairman of the Personal Injury Committee of the Bar Council of Hong Kong; Professor of Law at the City University of Hong Kong; and Advocate of the Supreme Court of Nepal since 1985.
Following military service and his time at the LSE, Neville joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but the work bored him and he longed to return to the Far East. So, two years later, in 1965, Neville and his Nepalese wife, Bimala Dewan, set off on the first of their adventures: to set up a home and business, a law practice, in the Valley of Kathmandu, Nepal. The story of this first adventure during the ‘flower power’ heyday is recounted in his memoir, Counsel in the Clouds.
Neville bought his first typewriter with money earned, as a 15-year-old, digging up, weighing and grading potatoes on Sussex farms for the Potato Marketing Board. But he draws on his life experiences, and his love of the people of Nepal, in his action-packed series of political thriller novels set in Bhutan, Hong Kong, Nepal, North India, Sikkim, and Tibet. They follow Anglo-Irish Major, Max Devlin, of the Royal Gurkha Rifles and his exploits in support of diverse groups of refugees from the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
Max, the protagonist in the first three published novels, The Dharma Expedient (soon to be released as an audiobook), Devlin’s Chakra and the latest, The Chakrata Incident, endeavours to turn his knowledge of the people, language, culture and geography of the Himalayan region to good account, on behalf of the victims of shifting political loyalties in a challenging world.
The memoir, Counsel in the Clouds, and the first two novels have been translated into Nepali. The former is also being translated into Chinese.