Friday Fiction: Scott Turow

--by Hanje Richards

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Scott F. Turow (born April 12, 1949) is an American author and a practicing lawyer. Turow is a partner of the Chicago law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal. Turow works pro bono in most of his cases, including a 1995 case where he won the release of Alejandro Hernandez, who had spent 11 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He was also appointed to the commission considering the reform of the Illinois death penalty by former Governor George Ryan and is currently a member of the Illinois State Police Merit Board.

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Burden of Proof - Criminal defense lawyer Alejandro "Sandy" Stern copes with his wife's suicide, his three grown children and a government investigation of his brother-in-law's successful brokerage house. While Stern hunts for answers, he is caught up in the threatened Federal prosecution of his most powerful and troublesome client – his own brother-in-law. Now, after a life of success, Sandy Stern is a man in desperate need of many truths – about his family, his uncertain future, and the troubled legacy his wife left behind.

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Innocent - The sequel to the genre-defining, landmark bestseller Presumed Innocent, this novel continues the story of Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto who are, once again, twenty years later, pitted against each other in a riveting psychological match after the mysterious death of Rusty's wife. Twenty-two years after the events of the earlier book, former lawyer Rusty Sabich, now a Kindle County, IL chief appellate judge, is again suspected of murdering a woman close to him. His wife, Barbara, has died in her bed of what appear to be natural causes, yet Rusty comes under scrutiny from his old nemesis, acting prosecuting attorney Tommy Molto, who unsuccessfully prosecuted him for killing his mistress decades earlier. Tommy's chief deputy, Jim Brand, is suspicious because Rusty chose to keep Barbara's death a secret, even from their son, Nat, for almost an entire day, which could have allowed traces of poison to disappear. Rusty's candidacy for a higher court in an imminent election; his recent clandestine affair with his attractive law clerk, Anna Vostic; and a breach of judicial ethics complicate matters further. .

.Laws of our Fathers - When a prominent state senator's ex-wife is gunned down in what appears to be a random shooting, old acquaintance Judge Sonia Klonsky takes on the case and meets a host of extraordinary and formidable enemies bent on her destruction.

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Ordinary Heroes - Stewart Dubinsky knew his father, David, had served in World War II, but had been told very little about his experiences. When he finds, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancee and learns of David's court-martial, Stewart is driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man he never knew. Using military archives, old letters, and David's own notes, he discovers that David, a JAG lawyer, had pursued a maverick U.S. officer in Europe, fallen in love with a beautiful resistance fighter, and fought in the war's deadliest conflicts. In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart gains a closer understanding of his father's secret past and of the brutal nature of war itself..

Personal Injuries - To Robbie Feaver, the law is all about making a play – to a client, a jury, or a judge. But when the flashy, womanizing, multimillion-dollar personal injury lawyer is caught offering bribes, he's forced to wear a wire. Even as the besieged attorney looks after his ailing wife, Feaver must also make tapes that will hurl his friends, his enemies, his city, and a particular FBI undercover agent into a crisis of conscience and law. Now, Robbie Feaver is making the play of his life.

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Pleading Guilty - A lackluster, somewhat alcoholic partner at a top law firm, Mack Malloy is assigned to investigate the disappearance of the firm's star lawyer and five million dollars. Mack's search takes him into the treacherous inner sanctum of his firm and through the shadowy heart of the city itself, on a path that soon runs him up against his longtime nemesis – the odious Pigeyes – as he plucks the threads of a dangerous web of corruption, deceit, and murder.

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Presumed Innocent - Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case – the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be presumed innocent

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Reversible Errors - Corporate lawyer Arthur Raven is the court-appointed attorney for a Death Row inmate. Convinced his client is innocent thanks to new evidence, Raven is a fervent crusader – and also a rookie in the vicious world of criminal law.