>Innocent – Book Review

>Scott Turow’s Innocent is a sequel to his Presumed Innocent, that wonderful first-novel and legal thriller from the 80s that was made into a pretty good movie with Harrison Ford. Rusty Sabich, the protagonist in that first novel, finds himself accused of murder yet again in this novel and, again, hires Sandy Stern to defend him. So all the players from the first novel are in the place only it’s different this time. Or maybe it’s not so different.

Regardless, Turow’s prose is a pleasure; Turow claims Dickens as one of his inspirations and thought the characters may not be as rich and varied those in a Dickens novel, they are memorable and vivid with complex and complicated personal lives. The old wounds from the earlier novel have festered and remain unresolved, driving Sabich to take risky action which leads to his undoing but not in the way the plot might have you believe.

A genre novel that rises above the limits of the genre.

(Funny, a year ago, I’d returned to Turow and was underwhelmed. This time around, I just may have to pick up those old books of his and see what I’ve been missing all these years.)

Limitations – Book Review

I picked up Scott Turow’s Limitations at the Waldenbooks closing at Crossroads Mall. Marked down to three bucks, it was further discounted another 60%. Heck, I couldn’t afford not to buy the book.

I was like everyone else in the 80s and read and enjoyed immensely Turow’s books but he didn’t write very many, it seemed, and I drifted away from him. I’m glad the cheap price of his book brought me back though I’m not sure I found a reason to stick around again. Commissioned and published by The New York Times Magazine, Limitations is only 200 pages long and doesn’t amount to much of a legal, or any other kind of, thriller. It’s just a rumination on justice, with a minor mystery at its heart of who’s threatening a judge who is hearing a controversial case. Of course, the judge has a personal stake in the case – not a direct one, mind you, which would disqualify him, but something far in his past that comes to the forefront because of this case. Which, when you think about it, might be reason enough to recuse yourself or provide a plaintiff further grounds for appeal if the knowledge became known. But I’m no lawyer so what do I know?

The pace is slow and seems padded even with its short length, intended to fulfill a contract rather than some other organic sense of plot. The legal question is resolved satisfactorily and the source of the threat is discovered and all ends well. There was a spark or two of the Turow I remembered but it’s not enough to want to read his new one coming out in a few months or even go back and pick up the ones I missed. Looks like both he and I have been getting along quite all right without each other and, with this book, there’s no reason to change things.