Word: turow
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Barristers might take some comfort from the fact that Hollywood studios are tripping over themselves to film the best-selling novels of John Grisham and Scott Turow, both lawyers. This summer Universal Studios paid $3.75 million for Grisham's next book, which hasn't even been written yet. But this may be only a little comfort. Perhaps inspired by The Firm, a new movie is in the works once again featuring a young attorney in a large firm who discovers he is working for . . . Satan. The film's title is Devil's Advocate...
That is not easy for Mack Malloy, Turow's most complex and problematic hero to date. Pushing 50, Mack agrees to look for the missing partner because he fears his own high-paying job at Gage & Griswell may be in jeopardy; if he succeeds, he should be able to coast on his partners' gratitude for a few more years. The idea of the chase appeals to the ex-cop in him. And the job may distract him from the dreariness of his personal life: his recent divorce, his unruly adolescent son, the drinking problem he hopes he has solved...
Needless to say -- this is, after all, a Scott Turow novel -- the matter of the purloined money proves to be far more complicated than Mack or his colleagues anticipated. Finding Kamin turns out to be the easy part; the identity of the person who finally winds up with the millions remains perfectly hidden until almost the very end of the book...
...Turow has been justifiably heralded for his plotting skills, but such praise has overshadowed his other great strength as a writer of popular entertainments. He is genuinely interested in showing what makes his characters behave the way they do. Mack remembers the late Leotis Griswell, one of the founding partners of his firm, saying, "So much of life is will." Having seen -- as a cop and a lawyer -- enough malefactors blame everyone for their misdeeds except themselves, Mack would like to believe that people are free to make choices: "Better to find options than that bondage of cause and effect...
BOOKS Scott Turow's Pleading Guilty is irresistible. A genial fictional view of a decaying Main Street. THEATER An Irish classic travels well to the Caribbean. MUSIC Perry Farrell's Porno for Pyros takes a wild ride. Steve Reich previews the opera of the 21st century...