While well written, this book belongs in a category I sometimes refer to as bubble-gum books and others sometimes refer to as grocery-store novels. Essentially, the book keeps my brain engaged on a very low level, much like chewing gum does. There is no thinking required and the pages turn by very quickly. This is not my way of saying that I didn’t like this book. That really isn’t the case despite how improbable the plot is.

A corporate attorney is assigned to a death-row inmate for the purposes of preparing any final appeals. Despite the inmates written and video-taped confession, he is now claiming innocence. From there the novel follows along so many plot twists and turns that it just sort of makes you shake your head.

This book isn’t on any list of mine, it just happened to cost a dollar at the thrift store so I grabbed it.

Страхотно ми хареса!

Понякога, раздаващите правосъдие са по-големи гадини от престъпниците - чувстват се всемогъщи …

Очаквах съдебен трилър, но получих много повече!

Тънък психолог, Търоу е изградил чудесно героите си и е истинско удоволствие да ги следваш из кривините на заплетен случай с тройно убийство.

Не знам защо, но по-голямата част от книгите му не са достатъчно популярни - според мен, те са много по-добри от повечето прехвалени романчета на Гришам например.

Цитат:

"Само че опре ли до любовта, никой не получава, което очаква от нея."

A so so book. A little something for everyone. One or two surprises, but nothing to shout about. Having written a number of books myself, I know it isn't easy. I generally try to be fair with authors. Let's just say this probably isn't his best work. I'm sure he has done better.

Whilst this is deemed a legal thriller on the cover, I rather felt the slow and methodical manner in which things initially unfolded made it more of a legal or crime procedural, maybe a suspense novel.

However once the plot moved firmly into the time period in which it was set (2001) the story did become a bit more thrilling, and you became more invested in seeing how the courtroom maneuvering would unfold in terms of revealing the truth.

I can't say that I at all found the prosecutor and lead detective in the story were at all ethical, and I feel it quite saddening that their are such people out there who would rather tear someone else down than admit their own shortcomings or errors.

As such, I wasn't particularly enthused with the way the story came to resolve the plot, I would have preferred for them to tangle it out all the way to the end in the courtroom, yet I can see the way it did unfold conveyed a particular message.

Overall, it was a good legal story, not quite as thrilling and captivating as Grisham's works yet perhaps more thought provoking.

After watching the fantastic series on Apple TV called Presumed Innocent based on Scott Turow’s novel, I decided to read another of his novels. First, I really liked his chart of the characters in the novel. I referred to it many times. I wish all complicated plot lines used a chart to help the reader. Or maybe just the reader like me. Ha ha.

Muriel, the prosecutor, commented on survivors of violence …” their suffering arose merely from their loss, but also from its imponderable nature. Their pain was not due to some fateful calamity like a typhoon, or an enemy as fickle and unreasoning as disease, but to a human failure, to the demented will of an assailant and the failure of the regime of reason and rules to contain him. The victims were especially entitled to think ‘this should never have happened’, because according to the law it shouldn’t have.” Well said Mr. Turow.

I like to quote some of my favorite passages in my reviews because it shows the beauty of the writing. In this quote, Gillian, a former judge who was removed from the bench, is forming a relationship with Arthur, the lawyer for the appeal. They were writing a motion together to get the case reconsidered. “The focus of her concern was as much Arthur as Gandolph (the wrongly imprisoned), but she shared his excitement in finding some hope for him in the law. The power of the law, whose drab reality was nothing more than words on the page, struck her then, not simply its determining role in the life of other citizens, but in hers. The law had been her career, the site of her triumphs, and of her downfall, and now through Arthur, a source of recovery. Its words, long forcibly unspoken, remained the language of her adult being. Even as Arthur and she gently debated what to write next, she was unsure whether to accept that recognition with exhilaration or misery.”

Scott Turow is the king of legal thrillers.

Great story with good twists, terrific characters, learned a lot of law; 553 pages is a bit long for a "fun read" - I feel I should get some law school credits. Still, glad I finished it.

I first read Reversible Errors when it was published in 2002 and just read it again. My reaction was the same, a good read but not as satisfying as most of Turow's other novels. Of course, that's a high bar, the worst Turow novel is two or three times better than the best Grisham novel.
But I do love this quote from the novel's protagonist, Arthur Raven, a former prosecutor who moved to corporate litigation who was appointed to represent an inmate who plead guilty to a horrible murder years ago and filed a pro se petition claiming innocence for the first time, shortly before his scheduled execution date. Raven is unhappy about his involvement musing:
........"Someone had said that power corrupted.But the saying applied equally to evil. Evil corrupted. A single twisted act, some piece of gross psychopathology that went beyond the limits of what almost anyone else could envision -a father who tossed his infant out a tenth floor window, a former student who forced lye down the throat of a teacher, or someone like Arthur's new client who not only killed but then sodomized one of the corpses-the backflow from such acts polluted everyone who came near. Cops. Prosecutors. Defense lawyers. Judges. No one in the face of these horrors reacted with the dispassion the law supposed. There was a single lesson, things fall apart. Arthur had harbored no desire to that realm where chaos was always imminent......."
But Arthur is forced to return to that realm. And despite his cynicism he gradually learns that his client might actually be innocent, despite his confession. Turow then turns the narrative to the detectives who solved the case, one is still a detective and he recounts to himself the circumstances of the confession, circumstances that make it both coerced and unreliable to anyone but the detective himself. The other detective went to law school and has become a top notch prosecutor who is eyeing a campaign for the top job and believes the defendant is guilty but is always cognizant of the potential for this case affecting her career. And the trial judge is thrust back into the limelight after being released from prison for the crime of accepting bribes as a Judge.
As the plot continues, it does not have quite the suspense or logic of other Turow novels, but Turow continues doing what he does best, injecting humanity into his characters and situations

I couldn't put this book down. The writing, in my opinion, is wonderful - the phrases so beautiful, at times I could hardly believe I was reading a courtroom thriller. Turow takes that hackneyed plot, the prisoner on deathrow who claims he's innoncent, and turns it into a masterful study of humanity's flaws and weaknesses, as well as their capacity for forgiveness and love.

Arthur Raven is a commercial lawyer appointed by the court to act for Rommy 'Squirrel' Gandolphi - a deathrow prisoner who at the eleventh hour suddenly claims he is innocent, despite his numerous confessions.

Arthur's subsequent diligent and thorough investigations (Arthur is very thorough) will bring him head to head with Muriel Wynn, the assistant PA, and Larry Starczek, the detective who collared Rommy for the crime and Muriel's ex-lover. It also brings him into contact with ex-judge Gillian Sullivan, herself just out of prison. The stage is set for high drama, page turning intrigue and a fantastic story.

This story is about a lawyer who has been assigned by the courts to a pro bono case. This felon is on death row and has run out of appeals. As they delve into the case they start to believe that there client is innocent. It is a race to prove his innocence before it is too late. This is a compelling read.

Turrow continues his series of Kindle-County-set legal 'thrillers'. This one comes closer to being a thriller, I suppose, but still misses by a wide margin. This is a mystery, in the broad definition, and a 'legal procedural,' if that were a real category. A retarded petty thief is to be executed for a murder-robbery. He is assigned a lawyer, a corporate-law partner, to make one more check for grounds to halt or delay the execution.
Because Turrow does the very best job of any author of creating credible characters and situations, it is impossible to tell if the prisoner is guilty or not. There are oddities, but there are always oddities.
Turrow crafts the deepest, most complex characters. I know them; I know there substance so well that, like real people, I can't describe them in a few words. They are real. As usual, my one complaint is that he over-does the characters. He would win the character-credibility contest at the 20,000 word mark; yet he pours it one for another 40,000.
The story has satisfying twists and surprises as the lawyers and cops dig into the old case. New suspects arise; new motives appear. Turrow is also the master at creating a compelling mystery that rings absolutely true, and delivering it in a suspenseful way. The book finishes with a mostly-satisfying ending; Turrow should give Grisham a lecture on endings.
A new kind of satisfaction emerged, for me, from this book. Having read the sixth book set in fictitious Kindle County, I have come to know the county and city. The characters here have minor connections to the previous books, leaving me with the feeling that I lived and worked in this city for decades.

I listened to the audiobook of this and the narration was OK. There were a number of characters in the story and they were kind of hard to keep straight. Perhaps better narration, or multiple narrators, could have made that easier.

The story concerns Rommy Gandolph who was convicted of a triple murder decades earlier and whose execution date is approaching. The court of appeals appoints Arthur Raven, a well-heeled corporate attorney to handle his final appeal. He's never handled a capital case before, but expects it just be a formality. Turns out to be anything but. His opponent is Muriel Wynn, the county's chief deputy prosecuting attorney who is also getting ready to campaign for her boss's job. In addition, there are a number of other characters including judges, lawyers, cops and criminals who all have a piece of this convoluted story.

Several episodes of consensual sex, otherwise no content warnings.

Not a bad legal thriller; Turow is a good writer overall. I think there were some aspects of the story that got a little unbelievable, mainly having to do with the 2 extra-marital affairs that were being carried on. The action and plot unfolded slowly, with twists and turns, and characters were filled out fairly well. The whole story still didn't totally grab me, as there just wasn't the umpffhh to make me not want to put the book down.