when justice fails
The fight begins
Exiled boxer Marco Carreira thought he’d left Montreal behind for good. Rebuilding his life in Havana, far from the city that let his son’s killer walk free, he wants distance. Then a Mexican cartel pulls him back with a job that’s supposed to be simple. Clean. Fast. But it never is.
Meanwhile, undercover cop Valérie Rochefort is fighting to dismantle Montreal’s criminal networks from the inside, just as her teenage daughter vanishes into the night. When she finds out a cartel has crossed the border, a name from her past resurfaces: Marco Carreira.
As Marco races to finish the job and Valérie searches for her daughter, their paths collide in the city’s darkest corners. What they uncover leads them into the heart of a system where judges, prosecutors, and criminals sit at the same table. To survive, they’ll have to choose: the law, or what’s right.
Gloves Off is a gritty, emotional noir thriller about two broken souls and the cost of fighting back for those you love when the system itself is the enemy.
He survived murder.
then the justice system.
Now he's back to
tell you this story.
Johan af Ström is a Montreal writer and award-winning advertising creative whose noir thriller Gloves Off was born from the darkest chapter of his life.
In 2017, he survived a violent murder attempt. Beaten to the brink of death with a shovel, he ended up in a wheelchair with cerebellar ataxia. His attacker walked out of court with an absolute discharge—no conviction, no criminal record—after telling police, “My father has money.” Johan spent months in hospital and physiotherapy, relearning how to walk.
But survival was only the beginning.
He rebuilt his career, returned to running 365 days a year, earned a Cannes Lion and a Grand Clio Award, and fought for justice for over six years, including three in the Quebec Superior Court alongside civil rights attorneys Julius Grey and Vanessa Paliotti.
During this ordeal, he wrote Gloves Off, a noir thriller drawn from the darkest corners of the justice system he endured.
His novel isn’t inspired by the justice system. It was forged inside it.
He lives in Montreal’s Plateau-Mont-Royal with his spouse and daughter.
