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3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
I read another Turow title years ago, which left a positive impression. So I went into this tale with high hopes. I enjoyed the courtroom intrigue and investigation of a cold case. Some of the political maneuvering within various legal jurisdictions was less interesting, maybe overly complicated. I'm sure that real-world bureaucracy is indeed that murky and convoluted; just don't want to invest so much time in my recreational reading if it doesn't improve the story.
I was a bit bothered that several women seem to fall into bed with the lead character. Turow's description of the female characters sounded at times like a cheap Hollywood casting description: superficial descriptions of body parts and physical characteristics. Did we ever learn why Esma thinks or does anything? Or simply how she looks after a night of heated passion?
I was more entertained than not.
I was a bit bothered that several women seem to fall into bed with the lead character. Turow's description of the female characters sounded at times like a cheap Hollywood casting description: superficial descriptions of body parts and physical characteristics. Did we ever learn why Esma thinks or does anything? Or simply how she looks after a night of heated passion?
I was more entertained than not.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a tense, absorbing and atmospheric international legal drama that follows a prosecutor’s case from The Hague to Bosnia to DC and other parts of the country.
It is complex.
Although it does not take place in the courtroom, the legal investigation does occur on the international stage.
As a reader you are intrigued, you want to know what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and will there be some justice. Mostly, what is the truth?
And, do readers get your answers at the end?
Scott Turow is an excellent storyteller. He has made his reputation on his ability to meld deep character study with court procedure and a twisted plot.
Whether or not the questions are answered (I will not give away spoilers), this book attempts to do the same in unfamiliar territory.
The fact that there were more than the usual number of players (characters) was challenging but ultimately rewarding.
As readers, you will have to figure out why.
It is complex.
Although it does not take place in the courtroom, the legal investigation does occur on the international stage.
As a reader you are intrigued, you want to know what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and will there be some justice. Mostly, what is the truth?
And, do readers get your answers at the end?
Scott Turow is an excellent storyteller. He has made his reputation on his ability to meld deep character study with court procedure and a twisted plot.
Whether or not the questions are answered (I will not give away spoilers), this book attempts to do the same in unfamiliar territory.
The fact that there were more than the usual number of players (characters) was challenging but ultimately rewarding.
As readers, you will have to figure out why.
Only reason I finished reading it was because my library does not reopen until next week. The first chapter dealing with the Testimony of as possible war crime was the high point and it just went downhill from there.
Much more than a legal thriller...
Middle-aged successful American lawyer, Bill Ten Boom, is having a bit of a subdued mid-life crisis. He has ended his marriage, not over another woman but simply because he felt there was no real love or passion in it. And he has given up his partnership in a big legal firm – a role he primarily took on to satisfy the aspirations of his ex-wife. So when he's offered the job of prosecuting a case at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, he decides it's too good an opportunity to pass up. The case involves the rumoured brutal killing of four hundred Roma in Bosnia in 2004. It happened near an American base, so the case is further complicated by the fact that the US, under George W Bush, pulled out of the ICC. First, Boom (as he is known) must establish that the atrocity did in fact happen, and if so, must then try to find out who should be held responsible.
Scott Turow is one of those writers whose books transcend easy genre definition. On the surface this is a legal crime novel with all the aspects of an investigation, suspects, clues, trial procedures, and so on. But it is also a careful, revealing look at the way the Roma have been dealt with throughout history, in Bosnia and elsewhere – a group at least as victimised as the Jews over the centuries but somehow still left under the radar of popular concern. Turow avoids the easy route of making the Roma seem too much like helpless victims though – he shows how their determination not to assimilate into the societies within which they live puts them in the position of always being seen as outsiders, who are often involved in criminal activity of one kind or another. He also discusses their cultural attitudes towards girls and women, which to our western eyes display all the sexism we have fought so hard to overcome. But Turow doesn't do any of this as an information dump. It's woven into the story as Boom himself learns about the Roma during his investigation, and as he becomes attracted to a woman of Roma heritage who is acting as a support to one of the witnesses.
We are also given a look at how the ICC operates: slow to the point of glacial on occasion, bound up in all kinds of procedures and restrictions, but grinding on in its efforts to bring justice for some of the most atrocious crimes in the world. Turow shows how the process can seem cold and unemotional, almost clinical in its approach, but how even this great legal bureaucracy can be shocked by some of the evidence that comes before it.
The story also touches on the other big American war of the early years of this century – some of the errors and miscalculations that turned “victory” in Iraq into the quagmire of factionalism that is still going on today, with consequences for us all. But while Turow is perhaps grinding a political axe of his own to some degree, he also shows the dedication and sacrifice of so many US soldiers at all levels, and the basic integrity of much of the legal and even political classes. And if all that isn't enough, there's another minor strand about Boom's European roots and the seemingly never-ending after-effects of earlier atrocities under Nazi Germany.
Turow's writing is as good as always – he's a slow, undramatic storyteller, so that he relies on the strength of the story and the depth of his characterisation, and he achieves both in this one. If I have made it sound like a political history, then that's my error, not his. Running through all this is an excellent plot – almost a whodunit – that kept me guessing till very late on in the book. He is skilled enough to get that tricky balance when discussing the various atrocities of bringing the horror home to the reader without trading in gratuitous or voyeuristic detail. And as well as Boom, he creates a supporting cast of equally well drawn and credible secondary characters. More political than most of his books, I'm not sure I'd recommend this one as an entry point for new readers (Presumed Innocent, since you ask), but existing fans, I'm certain, will find everything they've enjoyed about his previous books plus the added interest of him ranging beyond his usual territory of the US courtroom. Highly recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grand Central Publishing.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Middle-aged successful American lawyer, Bill Ten Boom, is having a bit of a subdued mid-life crisis. He has ended his marriage, not over another woman but simply because he felt there was no real love or passion in it. And he has given up his partnership in a big legal firm – a role he primarily took on to satisfy the aspirations of his ex-wife. So when he's offered the job of prosecuting a case at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, he decides it's too good an opportunity to pass up. The case involves the rumoured brutal killing of four hundred Roma in Bosnia in 2004. It happened near an American base, so the case is further complicated by the fact that the US, under George W Bush, pulled out of the ICC. First, Boom (as he is known) must establish that the atrocity did in fact happen, and if so, must then try to find out who should be held responsible.
Scott Turow is one of those writers whose books transcend easy genre definition. On the surface this is a legal crime novel with all the aspects of an investigation, suspects, clues, trial procedures, and so on. But it is also a careful, revealing look at the way the Roma have been dealt with throughout history, in Bosnia and elsewhere – a group at least as victimised as the Jews over the centuries but somehow still left under the radar of popular concern. Turow avoids the easy route of making the Roma seem too much like helpless victims though – he shows how their determination not to assimilate into the societies within which they live puts them in the position of always being seen as outsiders, who are often involved in criminal activity of one kind or another. He also discusses their cultural attitudes towards girls and women, which to our western eyes display all the sexism we have fought so hard to overcome. But Turow doesn't do any of this as an information dump. It's woven into the story as Boom himself learns about the Roma during his investigation, and as he becomes attracted to a woman of Roma heritage who is acting as a support to one of the witnesses.
We are also given a look at how the ICC operates: slow to the point of glacial on occasion, bound up in all kinds of procedures and restrictions, but grinding on in its efforts to bring justice for some of the most atrocious crimes in the world. Turow shows how the process can seem cold and unemotional, almost clinical in its approach, but how even this great legal bureaucracy can be shocked by some of the evidence that comes before it.
“…I knew there was no point. I could claw at the rock the rest of my life and get no closer. I knew the truth.”
“And what truth was that, sir?”
“They were dead. My woman. My children. All the People. They were dead. Buried alive. All four hundred of them.”
Although virtually everyone in the courtroom – the judges, the rows of prosecutors, the court personnel, the spectators behind the glass, and the few reporters with them – although almost all of us knew what the answer to that question was going to be, there was nonetheless a terrible drama to hearing the facts spoken aloud. Silence enshrouded the room as if a warning finger had been raised, and all of us, every person, seemed to sink into ourselves, into the crater of fear and loneliness where the face of evil inevitably casts us.
So here you are, I thought suddenly, as the moment lingered. Now you are here.
The story also touches on the other big American war of the early years of this century – some of the errors and miscalculations that turned “victory” in Iraq into the quagmire of factionalism that is still going on today, with consequences for us all. But while Turow is perhaps grinding a political axe of his own to some degree, he also shows the dedication and sacrifice of so many US soldiers at all levels, and the basic integrity of much of the legal and even political classes. And if all that isn't enough, there's another minor strand about Boom's European roots and the seemingly never-ending after-effects of earlier atrocities under Nazi Germany.
Turow's writing is as good as always – he's a slow, undramatic storyteller, so that he relies on the strength of the story and the depth of his characterisation, and he achieves both in this one. If I have made it sound like a political history, then that's my error, not his. Running through all this is an excellent plot – almost a whodunit – that kept me guessing till very late on in the book. He is skilled enough to get that tricky balance when discussing the various atrocities of bringing the horror home to the reader without trading in gratuitous or voyeuristic detail. And as well as Boom, he creates a supporting cast of equally well drawn and credible secondary characters. More political than most of his books, I'm not sure I'd recommend this one as an entry point for new readers (Presumed Innocent, since you ask), but existing fans, I'm certain, will find everything they've enjoyed about his previous books plus the added interest of him ranging beyond his usual territory of the US courtroom. Highly recommended.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Grand Central Publishing.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Turow moves from the familiar Kindle County to Bosnia and the International Criminal Court in The Hague in this complicated legal thriller, with some sex thrown in for good measure. There were more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at, which kept me reading past my bedtime. Plot points with the major female characters were left unresolved. Is there a sequel in the works?
About half of this book is a waste if time. Lamenting over divorces, soft porn, and other useless passages.
this was a good story. The characters were well done and the mystery kept my attention. The setting was interesting. I feel like I might have learned a little about history as well. There were a couple of very unlikeable characters, but I think there should be .