This courtroom, criminal drama novel did not capture my attention. The characters were alloverthe place, and by the end of the book, I realized I didn'tcare about any of them.

What I did enjoy, though, were the many references to 1960's culture such as anti-war protests, the draft lottery, cheaper phone rates after 6PM, men in beads, ironed hair, and the airlines passing out cigarettes after meals.

Turow attempts to address how sins and triumphs merge into subsequent generations. But the story gets overly complex and the last few chapters seem unnecessary. A decent story, but the book needs to be more concise.

Not really sure what to think about this book. I liked it, sort of interesting, but I don’t feel like I’m the intended audience. I think you need to be a 1960’s activist in order to get the full scope of what is going on, and that definitely isn’t me since I’m Gen X.

Good character develop and interesting plot-characters who lived together in the late 60's and 70's and were involved in the Viet Nam War protests converge again when a murder takes place. Are they related? And How? At 500 plus pages this book was way too long-and could have/should have been edited down to 3oo pages at least. So I can't really recommend!

Stuck on an airplane with only this book, so I kept plowing through it. But it’s way too long. Clearly Turow was a big enough moneymaker by the time this was published that no editor was brave enough to insist on better writing. Could have been an interesting story, but he’s just too self-indulgent to make it work.

I’m working my way through the Kindle County series and enjoyed the first four as I love a legal thriller. But not this one. It’s way too long and doesn’t have a plot that’s worthy of its length. Its meandering felt too self indulgent and I struggled; it was only my determination to get to the end that got me through it. I wouldn’t recommend this book despite being a fan of the series thus far.

least favorite of his books

Surprisingly slow-paced. Storyline crawled and characters developed way too slow. Was not able to finish the book—-very different from other Turow books.

Not remotely in the same league as the previous entries in this series. Where the courtroom drama was interesting enough, the personal interplay between a bunch of made up characters was, well, boring.

Incorporating the events of the early 70s and the mid 90s, Turow tells of Vietnam War protests in the earlier era and drugs and corrupt politics of the 90s. The characters have gone their separate ways, but converge in 1995 in the courtroom of a newly appointed judge who knew the defendant and his lawyer in the 70s.

I enjoyed the story. I found it to be full of twists, turns, and life’s ironies. This story unfolds in it’s proper time so if non-stop thrills, chills, and action is the only type of genre enjoyed, it may seem a bit too slow.
Good narration and good story!

Well finally finished. That tells you it seemed a long read to me. Some parts as a story were very good, but sometimes overly complex and built in too much historical past.
I will wait a bit to start the next in the series.

ST tried really hard to make this a Great Book but most of it tries too hard. The cosmic implications are too heavyhanded, and nobody is quite human. (It's a big problem that the different narrators have the same speech patterns.)

The legal drama is overcomplicated, with a typical ST switcheroo. His Sixties were pretty cliched. His ghetto slang was close-but-no-cigar.