Rating: 
Summary: Turow's Strongest Novel Since Presumed Innocent
Review: Presummed Innocence is, for my money, the best legal thriller written in the last twenty-five years. (I don't even like to use the term "legal thriller" to describe Turow's work b/c it suggests a kind of supermarket quality novel which is unfair and inaccurate.) What I like most about Turow, as opposed to his many imitators, is that he manages to capture the complexities and subtleties of both the law and human behavior that are such an important part of the way the legal system operates in the real world. There are no cardboard cut-out good guys or bad guys. Although the legal system is important in Turow's stories, it is always placed in a larger context and the novels are largely character driven. The novels since PI, while interesting and well worth reading, have not lived up to his first novel. Reversible Errors, though, succeeds more than the others. As a practicing attorney with recent experience in capital defense litigation, I picked up the novel with an added level of interest. I found that Turow's observations rang true. The story was gripping and realistic. At times, I found the writing to be a bit stilted, particularly in some of the love scenes, but on the whole the book was very good. Much more than a light summer read at the beach.
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best, but still an enjoyable read
Review: Scott Turow is one of my current favorite authors. However, I must admit to not having found this particular novel as compelling as some of his other works. He has an ability to write a novel revolving around complex legal issues, without reverting to heavy legal jargon. Anyone can understand, and I think many authors could learn a lot from Turow on this point. Except for Arthur Raven, who you can't help but want to cheer for, many of the other charachters in this cast seem cold and unloveable. The romance between Muriel and Larry just didn't have any appeal to me, perhaps because of the underlying anger they both carry around. The accused in this novel, Squirrel, is a black man with an IQ below 80, and Turow represents this very well in the dialogues between this man and Raven, his lawyer. However, the thickness of Squirrel's accent and his lack of education are painful to read, but fitting to the character nonetheless. If I were asked to rank Turow's novels, this one would be at the bottom of the list. But compared to other novels, that's still high praise.
Rating: 
Summary: A walk in the desert.
Review: After having read the masterful Presumed Innocent, I was looking were much foreward to getting my teeth into this new novel, but my expectations were, alas, somewhat disappointed. Knowing the writer's oppinion concerning the death penalty - it is not difficult to guess the outcome of the plot. To fill up the pages of the novel, the author throws in the love story of the defender as well as the love story of the procecutor in addition to the defender's mentally ill sister without much relation to the plot at all. After a while it feels like a walk in the desert. You are not much concerned about the characters and you are just waiting to turn the last page of this quite boring story. The best plus to the novel is that the main character is no he-man but only a normal person with faults and errors. Better luck next time!
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe his best
Review: I was sorry when this book ended: his are always good, but this beat 'em all.
Rating:
Summary: Important Story Made Real
Review: Falsly convicted people are currently sitting on death row, and this book provides one example of how this could happen. I would have liked it better if the author had described a dozen or so cases, and shown how sometimes the guilty go free, sometimes the innocent are executed, and sometimes the guilty are held accountable. This book was consumed with the intricate motives and maneuvers of a half dozen characters, and the underlying story almost gets lost in the drama about the characters. It's an engaging story on an important topic.
Rating: 
Summary: A TOUR AROUND MY LIVING ROOM
Review: Ever had a force guided tour around your own living room? It's boring and difficult, but not as bad as this book. Normally I love ST but this was a plot that lost it's way. I dont think that I'm especially dim but I simply lost the plot on so many occassions..who was who? And what was going on? I had to put the book down and read something else..I read two other books whilst I had my breather from this one. The characters were very believable but it was an insult to let them live their lives around such a convoluted and tangled plot. The romance was a relief from the tedium. Better luck next time Scott.
Rating:
Summary: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Review: "Reversible Errors" is another complex, multi-level Scott Turow legal (not courtroom) thriller, plodding at times, but on the whole, rewarding. Read so soon after John Grisham's "The Summons", one comes to the conclusion that, although Turow's book is far better on about 1,000 different levels, Grisham's is still the more fun to read. Turow's latest hardcover skips back and forth in time between 1991 and 2001, comparing and contrasting the arrest of small-time pickpocket Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph for a notorious triple-murder on the 4th of July, with his subsequent last-ditch appeals from Death Row. The main characters in this drama are helpfully laid out, in chart form, on the book's opening page. Out to bust Gandolph are Detective Larry Starczek (a WASPy version of "Law & Order"'s Lenny Briscoe) and assistant prosecutor Muriel Wynn. Out to save Gandolph a decade later is depressed corporate lawyer Arthur Raven, and disgraced trial-court judge Gillian Sullivan. Naturally, each pair becomes romantically linked, even before you can mentally cast them. You can chart Gandolph's fate in the novel by the direction in which each romance heads. To reveal who's together at the end of the book, and who isn't, is to spoil whether or not Gandolph is spared the death sentence. "Reversible Errors" features several interesting, flawed characters, each acting in what they believe to be their own best interest. Turow never passes judgment, even on his characters who end the novel at rock-bottom. The zealous cop and the earnest defense attorney are basically portrayed at equal footing. The sex is... well, not glamorous at all. Both Turow and Grisham tend to shy away from the boudoir, but when Grisham goes inside, the results are a lot more Hollywood. For all the intricate plotting and layers of surprise revelations, Turow still doesn't hide the ball exceptionally well. The name of a character introduced midway through the book is such a transparent pseudonym that, for 100 pages, I thought the big revelation would be that it wasn't a pseudonym at all. Following up on the up-close look at Lou Gehrig's disease in Turow's previous "Personal Injuries" (an excellent novel), this book features characters with terminal cancer and schizophrenia. I found myself feeling a bit hypochondriac by the end. However, when complex characters earnestly discuss law and ethics for 400 pages, it's hard not to get drawn into their intricate worlds. The law is realistically portrayed, and the few courtroom scenes are believably intense. These are attorneys with ideals, with ethics. Compared with Grisham, who hardly ever ventures inside the courtroom at all these days, it's clear that Turow is still the champ of the true legal thriller.
Rating:
Summary: Miscarriage of Justice
Review: When Scott Turow's novels first came out, I was largely unimpressed. Most of the time, it figured I was just getting too much information--both legal and forensic. But Turow has grown into a mature author who knows how to blend his legal knowledge with solid ficition writing. This book is particularly interesting in light of the fact that Turow is one of the lawyers who fought tirelessly to free a convicted murder in Illinois who was sentenced to died, even though another man admitted to the crime and had a perfect DNA match. He uses the real-life local squabbling and legal manueveriing to create a story that rings with believablilty. His characters are extemely good, especially the country prosecutor who's a tiny dynamo--fair on the court and unthinking in her love life. The defense attorney stuck defending a man on death row, Arthur Raven, comes across as Turow on a blue day. (All his heroes seem to be version of himself.) But the supporting cast is terrific the dumb-as-a-boulder condemned man to the conniving monster who really did the crime. My only objections are, once again too much information of fingerprint analysis (I skipped a lot of that) and bit of an abrupt ending. And, heck, I know a lot of courthouse reporters and none of them are the vipers that Turow protrays. But three cheers for Turow for shedding light on why innocent people end up on death row so often.
Rating:
Summary: Turow's twisted tale of a last minute death row appeal
Review: I thought it was strange that at the end of "Reversible Error" I found myself enjoying the romance in Scott Turow's latest novel, although I suspect that has something to do with the desire for there to be a happy ending of some sort for the hero in such a tale. The story begins with the commonplace of the last minute appeal of a death row inmate. Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph was convicted of a trio of brutal murders in 1991 and his final appeal has been tossed in the lap of Arthur Raven, a competent but uninspiring lawyer drafted by the federal appellate court, and his quixotic associate, Pamela Towns. Raven is fully prepared to go through the motions, based on his commitment to the process more than his belief in the client, until he receives a letter from another inmate promising vital information having to do with the innocence of Squirrel. Actually this story reminds me of a really good debate (as in high school/college forensics), where two sides hammer away at each other and every time somebody finishes speaking you are convinced that their side should win the day. The way in which Turow builds the evidence is quite compelling, especially as it brings us closer and closer to the truth. Early on it becomes clear that there is something going on here that neither side understands, and while the ultimate revelation is certainly not on a par with what Turow unveiled at the end of "Presumed Innocent," the way the author was able to place so many layers around that truth is pretty good. Readers will find many of Turow's Kindle County cast of characters popping up throughout the novel, but they are all minor figures in the tale. Arthur Raven is finally having his moment in the sun and he offers the sort of stolid character whose nobility is only recognized under such rare circumstances. This is a good man trying to do the right thing, and might finally be recognized by his peers for the qualities he has always exhibited. On the other side of the fight is prosecutor Muriel Wynn and detective Larry Starczek; she has ambitions for political office and he wants to rekindle their relationship from way back when. Again, there is the opportunity for the characters to revert to traditional stereotypes, but both exhibit openmindedness even as they reentrench their position. Also involved is Gillian Sullivan, the judge who convicted and sentenced Rommy at the end of the original trial, after which she was ended up in prison after a bribery conviction. She becomes perhaps the most interesting character of all in this little legal quagmire. As with all of Turow's novels there is an attention to legal detail that I admire and a way of constructing the maze of facts and evidence that I appreciate. In "Reversible Error" I especially liked the way the character of Arthur Raven is caught up with the case and the events as the readers. It is not, therefore, all that strange that at the end we want Rommy saved from death row not because of a sense of justice but rather because we want Arthur to come out ahead at the end of the nightmare.
Rating:
Summary: Satisfying relationship-driven courtroom drama
Review: "Reversible Errors" centers on a death-row inmate's last-chance appeal of his murder conviction. However, the courtroom drama merely provides the setting for the main characters who were involved in the initial trial a decade earlier to revisit their relationships and develop new ones. The task of defending the confessed killer falls to the rather unlikable, yet eager-to-please Arthur Raven, who seeks the assistance of the Gillian Sullivan, the judge who convicted his client ten years earlier but has faced problems of her own in the ensuing years. Arguing for the state are the ambitious prosecutor Muriel Wynn, and her on-again, off-again lover, detective Larry Starczek. As the author moves between past and present it becomes clear that the "errors" of the title are not those of law but of the lives of the damaged people involved in the case, all seeking some sort of redemption. The book isn't perfect; some of the developments are overly predictable, while other story threads are left hanging. However, it effectively presents the chilling theme is that the law is only secondary to the private motives of randomly chosen protagonists - even as a man's life hangs in the balance.
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