Innocent

I purchased Large Print and I received regular size.

In "Innocent," Scott Turow presents a sequel to his 1987 debut novel, "Presumed Innocent." Judge Rusty Sabich is accused of murder once again--but this time it is of his wife Barbara. The story is mostly told in flashbacks, from Spring 2007 when Barbara was still alive, to Fall 2008 when she mysteriously passes and Spring 2009 when court proceedings are well underway. In Spring 2007, Judge Rusty Sabich is a happily married man, who sympathizes with his bipolar wife Barbara and shy, law-school graduate son Nat. His world is turned upside down after he starts an extra-marital affair with his former law-clerk, Anna, who is young enough to be his daughter. Complicating matters is that Judge Sabich's election to the Supreme State Court is coming up, and news of his affair can cost him not only his wife, but his career. Fast forward a year, and Anna has broken up with Judge Rusty Sabich. Instead, she starts dating his love-struck son Nat---but is terrified of word slipping out about her past relationship with his father. And then the unthinkable happens--Rusty Sabich is accused of murdering his wife Barbara when he doesn't react properly to her failure to get up. Instead of calling medical services, he spends twenty-four hours at her bedside in a trance-like state. By the time Barbara is finally seen, she's no longer alive. By this time, even his son Nat has trouble figuring out if Rusty is guilty or not. Meanwhile Rusty's old nemesis from "Presumed Innocent," acting prosecuting attorney Tommy Molto, assisted by his fiery chief deputy Jim Brand, sees his chance to finally get back at Rusty by gathering enough evidence against him to bring the case to trial. A legal-thriller type court battle ensues, and takes up much of the book. This is my first Turow book, but I thought it was a solid plot. I like court-type legal thrillers that focus on the drama of trial and strong characters. This book fits this category. We get a detailed set-up, with each chapter being told from the point of view of different characters, and their various secrets.

This is not the classic page-turner of nonstop action, cliffhangers, and suspense. But it is classic Scott Turow: intelligent, intricately plotted, and superbly crafted, adding up to an extraordinary mystery that also can't be put down. Turow, a practicing lawyer best known for his legal drama, wraps the plot only loosely around the law as he treads new ground with this original novel of World War II. Stewart Dubinsky, a middle-aged reporter, knew is father served in Europe during WWII, but the War was a subject off-limits in the Dubinski household. Upon is father's death, Dubinski discovers that his father had been court-martialed and imprisoned, and sets out to find the decades-old answers. What follows is a tale that is anything but ordinary; a deeply emotional and painfully realistic drama of the horrors of war in the European theater. It is early 1944, and Dubinsky's father, David Dubin, is a young lawyer assigned to the US Army's JAG Corps headquartered in Nancy, France, recently re-occupied by the Allies. He is assigned to investigate the alleged insubordination of Robert Martin, a Major in the CIA-forerunner OSS. Martin is a shadowy figure; a living legend of unparalleled heroism and bravery behind Nazi lines, but perhaps also a spy the loosely allied Soviets. Turow, ever the perfectionist, can be counted on for a richly developed cast of characters. And rarely has there been a character more interesting than the enigmatic Gita Lodz, a Polish immigrant turned French resistance commando, a gritty and war-hardened warrior with as much similarity to Laura Croft as LeCarre's George Smiley has to James Bond. She is also the inseparable companion of Martin, setting up the first two legs of the triangle that Dubin not surprisingly completes. In pursuing Martin - and Gita - through northern Europe, the lawyer Dubin finds himself pressed into service as a front-line infantry officer to replenish Allied troops decimated by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge. Told from foxhole-level perspective, Turow paints a horrific picture of the War as brutally vivid and gory as "Saving Private Ryan", while capturing the passion and emotion of Leon Uris' best works. As much a character study as it is a mystery, Turow takes us on his own campaign culminating in a morbidly riveting portrayal of a Nazi concentration camp and ending in an unexpected twist to Major Robert Martin's story. It is typically three years between Scott Turow's novels, presumably due to the painstaking research he conducts. Delivered with the historical authority and authenticity usually associated with Alan Furst, Turow applies his trademarked plots, clever twists, and human struggles, adding up to a moving and educational drama that you'll likely be recommending to your friends. Well done, Mr. Turow!

Mr. Turow is the lawyer turned author of the American legal thrillers (see "Burden of Proof" and "Presumed Innocent"). His novels are set in a morally dubious world of wrong choices going really bad and how one finds redemption. His newest effort trades the courtroom dramas for the horrors of World War II but still remains, at heart, a search for redemption among the good and bad choices one makes in life. "Ordinary Heroes" is a stretch for Mr. Turow as he tries out a new narrative in a different historical period. He utilizes several voices (the son is the narrator piecing together his father's life thru letters and defense documents) to tell the events behind the court-martial of Captain David Dubin in the last year of World War II. He seamlessly mixes in the begining of the Cold War, the Battle of the Bulge, a love story, the Holocaust and a partisan commando raid against the backdrop of the chaos of war. "Ordinary Heroes" is a wonderful read.