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You Can't Go Home Again: Scott Turow's Innocent
Reviewed byLouise Leetch Read more about GalleyCat Reviews Remember trudging up the sledding hill when you were a kid, withthe rope to your Flexible Flyer slanted across your chest? Youtrudged and slogged and leaned into the hill just trying to get to thetop where you knew adventure awaited. Finally you belly-slappedonto the sled and had the ride of your life flying, twisting, bumpingdown the hill in one great run.That's what reading
is like. He tends to be incrediblylawyerly; and the first 200 pages are, if not prolix, certainly protracted. It takes forever toget to the meat of the story but when he finally gets there, you'll have no way to stop.Sometimes, though, you can't go home again; and writing a sequel can be repetitious.
picks up 20 years after Turow's
Presumed Innocent
--same great characters,same foolish guy having another affair with another colleague, same guy accused of murder, same defense attorney, same prosecutor; only slightly different outcome. It'sgood, just not quite up to Turow's standard.
Innocent
has a great plot proffered by a master of great twists. Rusty Sabich, now Chief Judge of the State Appellate court, has put behind him his acquittal 20 years earlier for the murder of Carolyn Polhemus. He's preparing for a shoe-in election to the StateSupreme Court when, whoops! his wife dies very suddenly. Now that would be just an unfortunate event for one with her medical history; exceptRusty just sits with her dead body for 23 hours before he bothers to call anyone. This justdoesn't sit right with Tommy Molto, who was the prosecutor in Rusty's murder trial.He and his intense samurai-like assistant, Jim Brand, think something stinks and still believe Rusty guilty of the earlier murder. Molto would love to nail Rusty, but after defense attorney Sandy Stern tore strips off him in that foray, he needs a dead cert case before he'll bring charges.Jim Brand has pit bull in his genes and turns up too many 'coincidences' for Molto toignore. So off we go, back into the courtroom--this is the top of the sledding hill andTurow really lets it rip. The machinations of trial lawyers and the quirks and caprices of the law never cease to impress me.
Here's where Turow shines. Turow had one truly brilliant twist and then threw it away. Ithought of a couple great turns this book might take; alas, the author took a different path.That's the trouble with writing great books; we expect each one to surpass the previous.Still, it's easy to be a critic; Turow has a lawyer's expertise. He's also the pro with eight bestsellers--so I guess that's why we let him be the author.
Louise Leetch
divides her time between Chicago and Wisconsin. Bothhouses are just crammed with books. She collects her reviews on her GoodReads page.
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