by Scott Turow
Arthur Raven, hero of Scott Turow's riveting new legal thriller, has a problem: an unsavory client who may or may not be guilty. Raven's client, convicted of a triple murder during which he allegedly sodomized one of his victims postmortem, is to be executed in 33 days, hardly enough time for Raven to find evidence to save him.
Turow keeps Raven sweating, the prosecutors counterpunching and the tables turning until the final pages. Along the way, Turow, a lawyer himself, shows off his insider's grasp of law and order that has made bestsellers of his last five novels. Readers get a tour of the bloodstained murder scene, eavesdrop on a brutal police interrogation and sit in on cut-and-thrust courtroom jousting.
Legal buffs will love the references to the arcana (always clear in context) of proffers and depositions, immunity and discovery. For those who aren't legal eagles, Turow obliges by moving some of the action out of judge's chambers and into bedchambers—although his descriptions suggest the parties involved should spend less time in the law library and more in the gym. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $28)
Bottom Line: Guilty pleasure
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