Reversible Errors: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been A Brilliant Court Drama
Review: Many of the reviews comment positively on the large amount of space devoted to the character's lives outside the strict confines of the plot. In my opinion, however, this was the downfall of this, otherwise superb, courtroom novel. At 350 pages this would have been a brilliant page-turner, at 550 pages it dragged a lot.

The basic plot is certainly enough to maintain interest through the sidelines, though. The early part of the novel spends part of it's time in 1991 when a policeman who "had the right man" and a very ambitious junior DA (also his lover) 'assisted' a mentally subnormal man ("Squirrel") into confessing to three murders - a confession that ended up giving him the death penalty. Jump forwards 10 years and we have his appeals lawyer starting to dig into a few murky circumstances that shed serious doubt on the case.

Turow does a great job of keeping our interest in the various murder suspects; the original assistant DA is now highly placed to become the next DA and doesn't want this to ruin her chances of election; the policeman anxious to put charges of coercement behind him; the appeals lawyer, finding a new love of the law in the process; the original judge, having fallen on hard times herself, second-guessing her decisions. The machinations of the prosecutors is handled masterfully and, of course, we have the twists and turns expected.

Unfortunately, this is interrupted frequently by tedious chapters that add nothing to the plot and, actually, add little to the characters we see. Pages and pages of very similar dialog do nothing. Now, some will argue that I'm just being shallow and buying into the constraints of the genre. Perhaps. I'm certainly not adverse to heavyweight material (see my review of Joyce's Ulyssees) but this isn't particuarly good and it does seriously impede the flow of the book.

It seems from other reviewers that this was a departure for Turow. I'll certainly give him another chance but, for me, this book will always be a little soured by all the things in it that shouldn't have been there.

Rating:
Summary: A story about the search for truth and personal redemption
Review: Rommy Gandolph is on death row for the murder of three people in a diner when corporate lawyer Arthur Raven is assigned by the court to represent him in his final appeal before execution. Raven resentfully goes through the motions of representation until he receives word that another inmate, now dying from cancer, may have new evidence. Raven takes up the crusade of proving that Gandolph, a small time drug user and thief with a low IQ. was framed for the triple murder that put him on death row.

As the title suggests, the book follows both the errors made when Gandolph was convicted in 1991 and the discovery of new evidence and witnesses. But the story is not really about Gandolph, but about the three of the people who were central to the original story and current defense attorney Raven.

Raven works with the judge at Gandolph's original trial, Gillian Sullivan, in getting the new evidence. Sullivan, recently released from prison for taking bribes and a recovering drug addict is drawn to Raven, a hard working attorney who is unable to sustain personal relationships. The unlikely couple, a beautiful ex judge in her late 40s and an awkward driven attorney in his 30s, develop an unusual kinship. This is one of the two key relationships at the core of this story. The other relationship is that between the prosecuting attorney of Gandolph's case, Muriel Wynn, and Larry Starczek the original detective on the case. Wynn is now married to a wealthy but aloof businessman and running for DA and is put into contact with Starczek with whom she had a long term affair at the time of the Gandolph trial. Both question what happened over the years and whether they made the right choices. Wynn and Starczek have different motives for ensuring that Gandolph is executed for the murders.

The first third of this book alternates between flashbacks to the original events in 1991 to reveal what happened at the arrest and trial and 2001 when the new evidence is presented. This part of the book is somewhat tedious but the pace picks up nicely in the rest of the book. The relationship between Raven and Sullivan becomes central to the story and is as much a part of the redemption theme as is the work to free Gandolph. The final resolution of the story tests that relationship as well as Raven's core beliefs in the legal system.

Be aware that this is not a traditional legal thriller due to the key focus on relationships but it is still a very satisfying story.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good Book
Review: This is Turow's best novel. Turow has taken a genre format, the legal thriller, and attempted to produce a broader psychological novel using the conventions of the genre. The central plot element is the effort of a lawyer to free a semi-retarded prisoner from Death Row. Set in Turow's fictional world of Kindle County, a fictionalized version of Chicago, the book recounts the efforts of the defense counsel, Arthur Raven, to free his client, and the equivalent efforts of the prosecuting team to sustain the conviction. Wrapped around this armature are the primary themes of the book, regret for past choices and failures, and efforts to correct past errors. All the major characters in this book are in some way haunted by prior choices in life. In the course of the story, all of them have some opportunity to revisit and rectify those errors. Some of these errors are crimes, some are ethical lapses, some are professional misconduct, some merely personal failings, and some varying combinations of all these.

Turow is a good writer. His characterizations are excellent and he has a real talent for writing dialogue. The plot of Reversible Errors is constructed well, perhaps a bit too cleverly. His primary protagonist, Arthur Raven, is an extremely sympathetic character; a bit of an everyman who succeeds on the basis of diligence and decency rather than talent.

This is an ambitious book and Turow largely succeeds in his aim of exploring regret and the consequences of unfortunate choices in life. Some parts of the book are affecting. This is probably the first of Turow's books that deserves to be classified with other works that surpass their genre such as the better novels of PD James or John Le Carre.