I feel that the best way to describe this book is to recount my thought process during one scene:

Is this a sexual scene with a pregnant person? No it can't be Amanda, you're only thinking that because every interaction that Stern has had with a female non-family member has been sexual in nature. That's probably why Turow made her pregnant, as a non-sexual interest for Stern. Okay now they're both naked in the hot tub. This is weird. Oh God it is sexual in nature, this is disgusting! Okay Amanda, Stern just went through a tough ordeal, he's just being weird right now. *Several hours of listening later* Dear God, she was into it too. This book is horrifying!

Why anyone thinks this is a good book is an absolute mystery to me. It is the story of a man who has tried so hard to protect the women of his life (misogynistic attitude included) when in fact they were protecting him because he is such a LOSER! He finds himself in a world of strangers after his wife dies even though he has friends and children because he never took any time getting to know any of them. This book is at best eyeroll inducing because of the terrible awkwardness of the main character and at worst a soap opera that drips with unnecessary drama.

And imagine my surprise when reading "1L," Turow's non-fiction tale of his time at law school, I find that he has given someone the pseudonym of Sandy Stern! So sorry to whomever is the real-life Sandy Stern, Scott Turow thinks you're a loser with weird sexual predilections.

Best middle-aged South American immigrant sex machine lawyer protagonist ever.

For a lot of pages, lawyer Sandy Stern stumbles hither to yon dealing with his brother-in-law's financial hi jinx and his own personal and family issues.

The poorest effort I've read by Turow. The book should have been sub-titled "The Sexual Reawakening of Sandy Stern", because a large portion read like a middle aged widower's dreams come true. The part of the book that didn't deal with Stern and his love objects was a frankly quite boring story of financial malfeasance and family dysfunction. Since the book got good Goodreads reviews, I am clearly in the minority, but I completely vacillated betweenboredom and eye rolling while reading this.. Find a better book.

I don't often rate a book a five, nor will I in this book, but close. Very well written story presented with many side stories. A work of fiction that the reader feels he has "solved" the crime, but finds that he is wrong, not once but several times.

Scott Turow had written an award-winning novel Presumed Innocent in 1987. In 1990, he released this second fiction The Burden of Proof that I picked up to read only recently. Scott Turow is a trained and practising lawyer. I was drawn to reading his other books because of Presumed Innocent where the plot, the twists and turns, and the cut and thrust in a court-room setting were so clearly written for a non-lawyer like me to follow the story-line.

The Burden of Proof revolves around the family of Sandy Stern, the defence lawyer who appeared in the earlier book - Presumed Innocent. Sandy had to face two major seemingly unrelated events. One was what appeared to be a suicide of his wife, Clara, when he returned home one late afternoon from an overseas trip on an assignment. The other was a subpoena for his brother-in-law Dixon Hartnell to appear before a United States grand jury to answer to charges of some illegal trades on commodities and futures exchanges. The story was not as simple. Sandy’s family of three grown-up children and a son-in-law had roles to play in this story.

The writer, Scott Turow, had me believe the obvious as he wrote the pages. The guilty parties and motives of actions appeared clear as day. But the obvious is not what it is. The suspense as the plot thickened was kept throughout until Part Three of the book when Scott Turow slowly peeled off layer and layer of veil of obscuration. The guilty parties and real reasons for individual acts of deception and final actions were plainly revealed. There is no doubt in my mind as to why events happened the way they did. The twists were complete and I believe the readers were fooled as intended by the author.

There was a closure for Sandy Stern who was in the centre of his family problem. He maintained his reputation as a honourable defence lawyer who will not do anything to circumvent the codes of professional ethics of his legal profession.

It was a pleasure to read all 582 pages of this novel. I did not feel at all labored. One page leads to another and the story flow was easy to follow. There are not too many characters and Scott Turow wrote a tightly-knitted plot without superfluous passages.

✭✭✭

So this is a second of the “Kindle County” series books that Turow has been publishing over the course of the last 30 years. I reviewed the first one a few months back. This a “legal thriller” and starts with Sandy Stern (of Argentine Jewish descent, which comes up, repeatedly) finding his wife dead in the garage of a possible suicide. There is a note but few clues as to what might have happened. Over the course of the subsequent days and weeks Sandy begins to piece together a hidden life that he never truly knew about his wife’s private life. In addition, he’s defending his brother-in-law in a money-laundering case. Guess what…it’s ALL connected.

This is a weird book because a lot of it tries to stay pretty tight to the idea of professional ethics and legalese about the how the different cases involved are tied together and how as a lawyer he has to proceed.

Then, there’s a LOT of description of middle-aged people doing it and doing it well. It’s weird. Like really weird Scott Turow is about 60ish now, and so he would have been in his early 30s when he wrote this book, but he is absolutely fascinated with middle-age sex. I mean it’s an important and interesting topic, but not one that seems to have much place in a legal thriller. I do appreciate that this book is trying to be more than its components, but it’s a weird concern.

This series I think functions like the Tana French series where it Daisy Chains the subject matter by moving from one character in the first book to the next.

I enjoyed Presumed Innocent a lot more than this novel. If possible here on GR, I would give it 3-1/2 stars, but can't.

The book is well-written, but I did not find the story as engaging as PI. The story dwelt more on the main character's (attorney Sandy Stern) trysts and professional turns as he dealt with personal and family tragedy and drama. There was little courtroom drama, and a few meetings in the judge's chamber.

In fairness to Turow, I think I prefer novels with more action, suspense, and intrigue over those that spend a lot of time on the personal life of the main character.

A wonderful read from start to end,where the political, sexual, criminal and moral elements are tied up tightly.

**SPOILERS** I got almost half way through this book and got fed up with the legal “thriller” side of this book. Illegal stock exchange? F**king yawn. However, provided the other side of this story held up - family crime drama - I kept going. Mistake. His wife kills herself. He discovers she had herpes so he gets himself checked... he gets his son who’s a doctor to inspect him? Why would you not just save your son the trauma of inspecting your d*ck and go to a regular doctor. Weirdest part of the book for me.
And then TO SOOTHE HIS GRIEF of losing his wife of 30 something years... he sleeps with everything with a heartbeat. Sorry no. I got to a point in this book that I wanted to abandon it so badly that I read other people’s reviews and when I found out it doesn’t get any better than that? Onto the did-not-finish shelf you go.

This was really well-written but I guessed the answers to the most pressing questions/mysteries early on. What I liked most was the depiction of a man thrust into the single life and forced to face his own life and family, as well as answer for things he'd left hanging, by the suicide of his wife. I found this moving and funny; the rest was easy to guess.