Scott Turow Brings Back Familiar Characters in Innocent

There's something about a book. If the book is particularly good, and it really speaks to you, it is one of the most intimate forms of entertainment around. It's like spending time in someone's head, particularly the writer's. It's like curling up inside there and listening to the writer telling a story. The plot and, in the really good books, the characters draw you in and you become a kind of eavesdropping part of the world presented in the story. If the story is particularly good, the characters become as real as the people who might be standing around you as you read it.

Scott Turow is the kind of writer that can tell those stories. I first "read" his seminal novel Presumed Innocent in the car. It was an audio book and it remains the one truly positive and exciting audio book experience I have ever had. I was driving from St. Louis to Chicago and the miles flew past as I tried to creep closer and closer to the speakers in my car. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next and was actually relieved when I fell into heavy traffic in Chicago.

Turow has returned to the characters from that hugely popular novel and entitled it Innocent and he manages to do something remarkable. He has crafted a sequel to an edge-of-your-seat novel that may actually be better than the original. Folks, this is one hell of a page-turner and it deserves to end up not only on the bestseller list, but in the bags and on the laps of every summer reader looking for a good summer read.

The story once again focuses on Rusty Sabich. He was a lawyer accused of murder in the first novel. This time around he is near 60 and a judge on the Court of Appeals. His wife, Barbara, is as crazy and lethal as you may remember her being in the first novel. His son is grown up and slowly and unsteadily following in the path of his old man. Even the lawyer, Sandy Stern, is back, but this time he is weaker and battling cancer. It is a race against time to see if Stern can stay alive to help Rusty with his current issue.

It is not spoiling anything to tell you that Rusty's wife ends up dead in this novel. The book's jacket description tells the reader as much before a single page is turned. It happens before the action really begins and within the first couple of pages. Does Rusty end up blamed for it? Would this be a novel if he wasn't?

Tommy Molto, the prosecuting lawyer from the first novel, is back again in this one. He is older and a bit wiser than in the first novel. He has met the love of his life, married her and now fathered a son. However, some wounds are too old and too deep and when the chance comes to pursue Rusty Sabich again, it ultimately proves to be too tempting to pass up.

Yes, what follows is a courtroom drama. Yes, there are plenty of scenes as lawyers from the defense and the prosecution parry and thrust and then dodge each other. These scenes crackle with energy even when it is, in reality, just two people in a courtroom talking. The dialog is dazzlingly realistic and sparkles with energy and electricity and unspoken hatred and loathing.

Despite the fact that the centerpiece of this novel is the courtroom antics, this is really a story about a family. It is the story of Rusty, Nat and Babara Sabich. They are a hopelessly and deadly dysfunctional family and the story is really about how the survivors manage to hold on to their own sanity and, ultimately, to each other. It is also a story about sin and redemption.

The pages fly by and the last 100 pages has so many twists and so many turns that you will never know from one page to the next what will happen and who will be betray whom. People end up with their backs stabbed and the betrayals are shocking, eye-popping and manage to surprise no matter how clever you might be as a reader.

This is a story that draws you in. You care about these characters. The story is told in alternating styles, almost always in first person, but the character from whose point of view we read the story changes. We know only by the name at the beginning of each chapter. Thus, we can never be sure which narrator is actually telling the truth. This helps keep the story and the reader off-balance and keeps you guessing until the very end when the final awful, shocking truths are revealed.

Innocent is a great read. For fans of courtroom thrillers, this succeeds admirably. For those looking for a good story, this novel fits the bill. And for those who want a good family soap opera, you will be hard pressed to find a more worthy family than the Sabich family.