Word: turow
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...best-selling Presumed Innocent, a Midwestern prosecutor is falsely accused of murder. Now a federal appeals court has ordered that the author, Scott Turow, himself be investigated for possible obstruction of justice...
While working in 1983 as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago probing corruption, Turow okayed the wiring of a Miami attorney turned informant. The hookup recorded conversations between the lawyer and a client then on trial in an unrelated case. This, declared the court, was "reprehensible." Currently in private practice, Turow angrily insists -- with the support of Chicago's U.S. Attorney -- that his decision was both proper and approved by higher-ups. The denouement to this real tale of tattle will take months to unwind...
...killed Carolyn Polhemus? There is a simple answer to that question, of course, and Presumed Innocent eventually provides it. But the novel has aspirations well beyond those of the run-of-the-mill whodunit. Turow uses Carolyn's grotesque death as a means of exposing the trail of municipal corruption that has spread through Kindle County. The issue is not merely ! whether a murderer will be brought to justice but whether public institutions and their guardians are any longer capable of finding the truth...
...extended trial forms the novel's centerpiece and shows off Turow's specialized knowledge to best advantage. The jousting between prosecution and defense, the psychological intricacies of jury selection, the subtle influence a judge can exercise on the outcome of a case, all are convincingly and grippingly portrayed. And the irony behind these elaborate proceedings is that they almost certainly have no bearing on the actuality of Carolyn's death...
...these flaws stem from an abundance of ambition, from Turow's attempt to wrest every conceivable implication out of the story he has constructed. Given the breakneck pace of Presumed Innocent, the surprises that keep piling up even after what seems an untoppable conclusion, no one is likely to complain...