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Title: Reversible Errors by Scott Turow ISBN: 0-446-61262-6 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.85 (97 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Surprisingly Good Book
Comment: This is Turow's best novel. Turow has taken a genre format, the legal thriller, and attempted to produce a broader psychological novel using the conventions of the genre. The central plot element is the effort of a lawyer to free a semi-retarded prisoner from Death Row. Set in Turow's fictional world of Kindle County, a fictionalized version of Chicago, the book recounts the efforts of the defense counsel, Arthur Raven, to free his client, and the equivalent efforts of the prosecuting team to sustain the conviction. Wrapped around this armature are the primary themes of the book, regret for past choices and failures, and efforts to correct past errors. All the major characters in this book are in some way haunted by prior choices in life. In the course of the story, all of them have some opportunity to revisit and rectify those errors. Some of these errors are crimes, some are ethical lapses, some are professional misconduct, some merely personal failings, and some varying combinations of all these.
Turow is a good writer. His characterizations are excellent and he has a real talent for writing dialogue. The plot of Reversible Errors is constructed well, perhaps a bit too cleverly. His primary protagonist, Arthur Raven, is an extremely sympathetic character; a bit of an everyman who succeeds on the basis of diligence and decency rather than talent.
This is an ambitious book and Turow largely succeeds in his aim of exploring regret and the consequences of unfortunate choices in life. Some parts of the book are affecting. This is probably the first of Turow's books that deserves to be classified with other works that surpass their genre such as the better novels of PD James or John Le Carre.
Rating: 4
Summary: No great Turow book, but a legal thriller w/real thrills
Comment: The imminent execution of a thief turned accused murderer provides an unlikely connection for the mismatched characters in "Reversible Errors". Convicted for a triple homicide occuring on July 4, 1991, Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph has one last chance to avoid the needle, a "Habeas Corpus" proceeding that will cast doubt on the conviction. In an appellate trial 10 years later, Gandolph remains the perfect defendant - unlikable, not all there, but not incompetent enough to have gotten off on a "technicality". His one hope: he was convicted in "Kindle County", the fictional land of Scott Turow novels, where nothing is what you expected it to be, where people are the sum of incomplete, failed lives, and their resentment causes them to act against the grain.
If you've read "Presumed Innocent", "Burden of Proof" or "Pleading Guilty", you'll be both disappointed and also entertained by "Errors" which pulls enough of the magic of Turow's other books to set this one apart from the single-dimensional hole of standard "legal-thrillers", while reminding you how much better this story could have been. True to form, Turow's cast of unfinished people are dissatisfied characters who become more defined and multi-dimensional the clearer their incompleteness becomes. We meet Arthur Raven, Rommy's feckless appeals attorney; Gillian Sullivan, the judge who tried his case, recently released for serving time on bribery; Muriel Wynn, Rommy's prosecutor; and Larry Starczek, the detective who arrested him long after most fellow detectives gave up. Turow wastes little time before telling us what's wrong with his characters - Raven is a successful corporate attorney prematurely enfeebled to middle-age by a life caring for his schizophrenic sister, and a failure at love. Sullivan, a beautiful and accomplished prosecutor became a dope addict on the bench - a flaw hidden by her bribery conviction; Wynn and Starczek had been sleeping together in that fateful and steamy summer of 1991. Knowing that their relationship can't last, they pull out all the stops on Rommy's case, knowing that the trial will be the only thing keeping them together. A decade later, when Raven forces them to revisit the case, they are married, but not to each other. Having to look back at their younger selves only reminds the two of what could have been, which fuels the resentment that may ultimately save Rommy Gandolph, or speed him to his execution. Our characters have so many gripes, you wonder whether the title "Reversible Errors" may say more about their lives than Gandolph's trial.
It's a story full of twists, and fun characters - one bound to make it a story you'll want to hang onto. Still, it's not a great Turow story. While a sweeping epic, Turow's work shines when creating high-drama in a compact story centered around a single character, like Mack Molloy in "Pleading Guilty" or Rusty Sabich in "Presumed Innocent". Though Turow excels in finding uncommon depth in supporting characters, you always know who his star is, and you never stop caring where both the star and the story are going. In "Errors", you're not sure who the story is about. While opening with Raven, the story quickly relegates him to a critical but supporting role as Gandolph's attorney. Turow tries to rehabilitate him halfway - introducing us to his mentally disturbed and disturbing sister, and having him fall in love with the wounded (former) judge Sullivan. But neither he nor Sullivan have any connection to the case in 1991 - they've made no errors in that case that can now be reversed. Instead, the story soon belongs to Starczek and Muriel, who go back to the original trial, desperately trying to find where they went wrong with the case and each other. Once the story introduces us to the younger Muriel and Starczek, without doing the same for Gillian or Arthur, both Judge and attorney lose pace with detective and prosecutor, and never regain it. That's a shame, since Arthur had the makings of a great Turow character - accomplished and resentful. Also, the story begins by splitting the narrative between the investigation in 1991 and the present-day appeal, a form of prose-as-time travel which allows for some neat irony (we meet a possible murder witness in 1991 who, a chapter and decade later, is now imprisoned for a violent felony) that the book quickly junks by never repeating. The story is also a mystery, but you're likely to keep asking yourself about a single piece of evidence which (surprise) becomes the linchpin of the entire case.
Nevertheless, this is on many levels a great story. As a "Kindle County" story, Turow revisits many of the stories or legends of that famous non-existent town for his fans, like the dreaded "Night Saints" (a sinister gang turned guerilla army - we first learn of them in "Presumed Innocent", only to find that Starczek braved them as well), the noble Alejandro "Sandy" Stern (the courtly defense attorney of that first book and the hero of "Burden of Proof") and even Trans-National Airlines (the airline bilked out of millions in "Presumed Innocent"). Dan Lipranzer and Ray Horgan also have cameo appearances. So do Tommy Molto and "Painless" Kumagai, the prosecutor and police pathologist who were disgraced at the end of "Presumed Innocent" yet seemed to have kept their jobs. But above all, "Errors" is that rare legal thriller that does more than pay lip-service to the law - the characters here don't shy away from courtrooms and never fail to thrill.
Rating: 5
Summary: A look in the heart of the system and the people in it
Comment: After "Personal Injuries" Scott Turow was called Americas' best novelist by "NY Times". Here he confirms his reputation with a stellar novel about death penalty case and people caught in it.
Turow stopped writing legal thrillers somewhere around his third novel. I mean it in the sence, that he is not writing about a crime or an investigation, they are used in his novels to look at the law establishment and the society in general. Thus, the readers who look for car chases, conspirasies and other Hollywood-style stuff are often dissapointed. But people looking for thoughtfull reflection on many important issues, a novel inhabited with living, breathing people are in for a treat.
The book starts with a person, sentenced to death, getting his last chance at appealing the verdict. He claims to be innocent (after keeping silent for years). The problem for his newly appointed lawyers is that their client allready confessed the crime, and he is also not the most sane person. The novel then cuts to the past, and shows us the other side - a detective and a prosecutor.
Cutting back and fourth Turow gives us both the defence and prosecution, and he managed to make them interesting and sympathetic. So you don't just root for one side - somehow you end up rooting for both, and that makes the conflict more intense.
But this story is not only about trial, it's about people - attorney, prosecutor, judge, detective - caught in a focal point in their lives, where they find that maybe, some of the errors they made in there lives, can be reversed.
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Title: The King of Torts by John Grisham ISBN: 0385508042 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: Prey by Michael Crichton ISBN: 0061015725 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 11 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Personal Injuries by Scott Turow ISBN: 0446608602 Publisher: Warner Vision Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Four Blind Mice by James Patterson ISBN: 0446613266 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 29 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Pleading Guilty by Scott Turow ISBN: 0446365505 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1994 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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