Kindle County Legal Thriller #7

Limitations

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From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent comes a compelling new legal mystery featuring George Mason from Personal Injuries. Originally commissioned and published by The New York Times Magazine, this edition contains additional material.

Life would seem to have gone well for George Mason. His days as a criminal defense lawyer are long behind him. At fifty-nine, he has sat as a judge on the Court of Appeals in Kindle County for nearly a decade. Yet, when a disturbing rape case is brought before him, the judge begins to question the very nature of the law and his role within it. What is troubling George Mason so deeply? Is it his wife's recent diagnosis? Or the strange and threatening e-mails he has started to receive? And what is it about this horrific case of sexual assault, now on trial in his courtroom, that has led him to question his fitness to judge?

In Limitations, Scott Turow, the master of the legal thriller, returns to Kindle County with a page-turning entertainment that asks the biggest questions of all. Ingeniously, and with great economy of style, Turow probes the limitations not only of the law but of human understanding itself.

Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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25(25%)
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100 reviews All reviews
April 17,2025
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Not a Thriller, but an intriguing story about an Appellate Judge who, in his youth, committed a crime similar to that committed by four men appealing their sentences and how this weighs upon his decision-making process.
April 17,2025
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Of the three Turow books I've read, this has been my least favorite. It wasn't exciting, it wasn't suspenseful, it wasn't riveting. But still, I enjoyed it, except for the fact that I figured out who the "bad guy" was about halfway through the book and I like to be surprised.

This book was more what I would call "cerebral." It was more of a treatise on the impartiality of judges, or the lack thereof. Judge George Mason is hearing the appeal of a case involving the gang rape of a girl four years before. This, of course, reminds him of an incident in his own past and the troubling memories are keeping him from making a decision in the case.

Meanwhile, someone has been sending the judge threatening e-mails and text messages. Who, pray tell, could that be? Throw in a red herring by the name of Corazon, a gang leader with a bottomless capacity for violence whose conviction Judge Mason upheld, and you have the makings of a dime-store suspense thriller. Except you know it's not the obvious guy. It's not the second most obvious guy, either. But the third most obvious guy (and once you read the decription of the person's life, it becomes obvious they're the bad guy)...ding, ding, ding!

I give this book 3 stars because it's well-written and the legal stuff fascinated me. As for as plot...eh.

Decent, not great.
April 17,2025
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So apparently I tried to read Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow like 6 years ago but I marked it “couldn’t finish” here on Goodreads. Well I actually did finish Limitations but a part of me really feels like I didn’t necessarily have to. This was a short read at only 197 pages; so I could’ve finished this a lot sooner but I had put this one down and read another in between for work.

I love legal/lawyer/court room drama books and this one definitely checked that box but I honestly feel like this story line could’ve been developed a little better. I want justice in all forms so I secretly wanted the Judge’a secret to come out. We could’ve dug a little deeper into his past to help develop the story. Another thing that may ruin it for some is that this book reads like it was written by a lawyer. I don’t mind it but you can just tell that Scott Turow isn’t your typical fiction author.
April 17,2025
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Turow's shortest (197 pp) novel is one of his most interesting. At its core, someone is sending death threats to appellate judge George Mason, long a model of what a judge and lawyer should be. He is what he seems to be, so what is behind the threats? The novel tells the reader a lot about how justice works. The quote from Oliver Wendell Homes that the law is not about logic but about experience is born out by its fairly moving if imperfect conclusion. Turow has always written with precision and skill, but this novel is my favorite, and it holds up to rereading after a decade.
April 17,2025
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Although not my favorite Scott Turow story, I felt the turmoil George Mason, one of the presiding judges in the Court of Appeals, is faced with as he examines the facts in the rape case recently assigned to him. The case causes George to look into his own life, reevaluate his stance on the law and his responsibility to it. Many novels present the story from the lawyers viewpoint of a case and it was refreshing to consider the story from the judges perspective. I would like to think that most judges put this much thought into their opinions. I guess we would all certainly hope so if it was our case in front of the judge. I also enjoyed reading about the reasoning the other judges on the Appeal Court with George used to back-up their opposing opinions. The law allows for interpretation and seldom is something just black and white. The story is more about George's reaction and response to the case in front of him, than the case itself.

To complicate matters George is receiving threatening e-mails which may be connected to the case in some way. To top it all off, George's wife has been seriously ill. All combined, George begins to feel it may be time for him to stop judging others and to step down from the bench.
April 17,2025
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I enjoyed reading Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent some thirty years ago. This fiction was a hit in 1987 when it was first published. Since then I had read Burden of Proof and Identical. The fiction Limitations is my latest read by the author. It was first released in 2006.

Judge George Mason is the central figure in this novel. He sat as the senior judge of a panel of three judges of the Court of Appeals in the criminal sexual rape case of People v. Jacob Warnovits et al. The statute of limitations would bar aggrieved party from bringing a criminal case to the court more than three years after the crime. Clearly three years had passed but a video tape of the horrific sexual assault on that night surfaced in public. Can the four white boys involved be set free from the rape of a heavily-drugged black girl just by virtue of this statute of limitations?

The Court of Appeals has to decide after the Kindle County Superior Court had found these boys guilty and was sentenced to jail. It was not easy for Judge Mason to come to a decisive stand on which way he would take. The author, Scott Turow shows us how a judge of George Mason’s stature is human after all. Judge Mason had a history of his younger days some forty years ago. Would this affect his judgement? The story got interesting when Judge Mason began to get death threats as the case was in deliberation.

The book is less than 200 pages long and it can be read quickly. I would recommend that one should take time to read each page and not to rush to complete it. There were times when I did not appreciate the styles of the American conversations among the characters.

The novel Limitations has elements of suspense and anguish. Who had been threatening Judge George Mason? Read the novel to find out.
April 17,2025
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So this was my first book I read by Scott Turow as I randomly found it in a goodwill. I really like law thrillers but haven’t read many so I thought to give it a try. I definitely enjoyed it!

Another book I read in one day as it is pretty short at 197 pages but it also just kept me immersed in the plot. I haven’t connected with any of the characters but probably because this is #7 in the series so I’ll be looking for book #1 to get a better feel of the protagonist and his stories. The suspense is also pretty well done and I didn’t figure things out before the answer was revealed.

Overall I think I found another favorite author and can’t wait to find some of his other books!
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