Scott Turow’s latest book is indeed a page-turner
CHICAGO: There is oten comfort to be had in the familiar. You can wear that old sweater. Grab a stool at your cozy corner tavern. Order the “usual” at your favourite restaurant. Call a friend from high school. Or you can pick up a book with the name Scot Turow on the cover. You can do that now, as his latest novel is formally released and sits in piles at your neighbourhood bookstore. Piles, because Turow has proven himself to be a reliable bestseller. When the piles vanish, more will arrive.
So, get one. You will be able to easily find “Suspect” (Grand Central Publishing) and across its 440-some pages you will find Turow in fine form. Comforting, yes, but also satisfyingly fresh and creative. He has never been a flashy writer. As I have writen before, “one of the admirable aspects of Turow’s work is that he is no showoff. As literate and smart as anyone in the writing biz, he is not given to fancy literary flourishes.” But he will make you turn a book’s pages, so forceful is his ploting, so eye-popping its twists and surprises, and so colourful his characters. The star of this new novel is one we have met before.
Clarice “Pinky” Granum was in Turow’s previous novel, the terrific “The Last Trial” (Grand Central Publishing) in 2020. She was the granddaughter of one of Turow’s great characters, lawyer Alejandro “Sandy” Stern, who has been there since that initial blockbuster, 1990 s “Presumed Innocent,” in which Stern defended Rusty Sabich, the prosecutor accused of commiting a murder in a case he was overseeing.
His books have arrived in a steady stream ever since, with Stern in roles large and small. Turow’s 11 bestsellers together have sold more than 30 million copies and there are movie versions of “The Burden of Proof,” “Innocent,” “Presumed Innocent” and “Reversible Errors.”
Turow has also found time and energy — don’t ask me how — to have a successful career as a lawyer who not only, as an assistant U.S. atorney, was lead counsel in the Operation Greylord trial but later, in private practice, helped free an innocent man from death row and worked pro bono for years on wrongful convictions and capital punishment reform.
He has also writen nonfiction books, served as president of the Author’s Guild, occasionally plays music for charity with that band of famous novelists (Stephen King, Amy Tan and others) known as the Rock Botom Remainders, and contributes op-ed pieces to a variety of publications.
Born in Chicago, raised in the northern suburbs and long living in Evanston, Illinois, his novel writing success has inspired a generation of atorneys to, so to speak, put pen to paper. Results have varied, with only a few finding Turow-like success and praise (John Grisham and David Ellis come most quickly to mind). As the Wall Street Journal has writen, “Scot Turow set the gold standard for the modern legal thriller.” In “The Last Trial” Pinky was, ater overcoming a drugged-out youth, working as a paralegal for her grandfather’s law firm and “a frequently infuriating employee.” Sandy’s “love for his granddaughter exceeds his understanding,” but he still thinks that she
“has a solid future as a private investigator.”
In reviewing that fine book, I wrote “I hope that Turow has more books to write. I am sure he does, and though it is presumptuous to suggest future work, he could not go wrong by expanding the character of Pinky, who is an appealingly complicated young woman.”
I take no credit for prompting her return, but in bringing her back in full colour, Turow has created one of contemporary fiction’s most complicatedly arresting characters, one not easy to adore but one impossible to ignore. She’s still quite a handful at 33, pierced and inked and working as a licensed private investigator for 52-year-old lawyer Rik Dudek, mostly on nickel-and-dime cases, bar fights and such. Now, they’ve got a big one, handling the troubles for police chief Lucia Gomez-barrera, who has been accused by three officers of trading sex for promotions. It would be unfair to give away too many of the turns that this case takes. That is one of Turow’s great gits, managing the action in a forceful fashion.