Reversible Errors: A Novel - Hardcover

Turow, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374281602 ISBN 13: 9780374281601

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002

Synopsis

A super-charged, exquisitely suspenseful novel about a vicious triple murder and the man condemned to die for it

Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph is a Yellow Man, an inmate on death row for a 1991 triple murder in Kindle County. His slow progress toward certain execution is nearing completion when Arthur Raven, a corporate lawyer who is Rommy's reluctant court-appointed representative, receives word that another inmate may have new evidence that will exonerate Gandolph.

Arthur's opponent in the case is Muriel Wynn, Kindle County's formidable chief deputy prosecuting attorney, who is considering a run for her boss's job. Muriel and Larry Starczek, the original detective on the case, don't want to see Rommy escape a fate they long ago determined he deserved, for a host of reasons. Further complicating the situation is the fact that Gillian Sullivan, the judge who originally found Rommy guilty, is only recently out of prison herself, having served time for taking bribes.

Scott Turow's compelling, multi-dimensional characters take the reader into Kindle County's parallel yet intersecting worlds of police and small-time crooks, airline executives and sophisticated scammers--and lawyers of all stripes. No other writer offers such a convincing true-to-life picture of how the law and life interact, or such a profound understanding of what is at stake--personally, professionally, and morally--when the state holds the power to end a man's life.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Turow is the author of worldwide bestselling novels including Presumed Innocent, Innocent, Ordinary Heroes, The Burden of Proof, and Limitations. His works of nonfiction include One L, his journal from his first year at law school, and Ultimate Punishment, which he wrote after serving on the Illinois commission that investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office. Ultimate Punishment won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He lives outside Chicago, where he is partner in the firm of SNR Denton (formerly Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal).

Reviews

The sixth novel from bestseller Turow is a big book about little people in big trouble, involving the death penalty (one of the author's real-life legal specialties), procedural foul-ups and a cast of characters who exemplify the adage about good intentions paving the road to hell. Arthur Raven (a middle-aged, undistinguished lawyer taking care of a schizophrenic sister in a suburb of Chicago) lands a career-making case: the 11th-hour appeal of a quasi-retarded death row inmate, Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph (accused of triple homicide a decade earlier), on new testimony by a terminally ill convict. Muriel Wynn, an ambitious prosecutor, and Larry Starczek, the detective who originally worked the case, are Raven's adversaries. Plot thickener: Wynn and Starczek are engaged in a longstanding, tortuous, off-again, on-again affair (both being unhappily married) that predates the crime, and which may have indirectly influenced the course of the original investigation. Arthur pulls in the original presiding judge from the case, Gillian Sullivan, just emerging from her own prison stretch for bribery (which masks an even darker secret) to assist him on the case, which leads to another tortuous affair on the defense's side. On top of this (Turow is well known for his many-layered narratives) is the dynamic among the criminals themselves: the dying con may be covering up for his wayward nephew, further muddying the legal waters. The first part of the book, which flips back and forth between the original investigation (1991) and the new trial (2001), is structurally the most demanding, but it is vital to the way in which Turow makes Rommy's case (as well as Arthur's and Muriel's). No character in this novel is entirely likable; all seek to undo some past wrong, with results that get progressively worse. Turow fans should not be disappointed; nor should his publisher.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Turow (Personal Injuries) has said that once he acquired a computer, he stopped developing stories in a linear fashion. His latest novel not only bears out that statement but provides a good example of using a nonlinear structure to build suspense and develop characters. Kindle County defense attorney Arthur Raven is appointed by the court to look into a case that was tried more than a decade ago. In the process, he is forced to revisit not only his client's past but his own. To portray the ever-shifting balance of legal issues in the case in tandem with changes in the characters' emotional and philosophical states during the intervening years, Turow moves skillfully between past and present, revealing tidbits of fact, circumstance, and motive as he goes and leaving it up to the reader not only to construct the story's linear progression but to understand the significance of the book's title as both a legal entity within its plot and a personal reality for its characters. Turow's work once again extends beyond the genre he helped create. Highly recommended.
Nancy McNicol, Whitneyville Branch Lib., Hamden, CT
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Turow takes on the death-penalty controversy in his latest legal thriller and places complex characters on both sides of the issue, battling over a thorny, convoluted case. In 1991, three people were brutally murdered in a Kindle County diner. Prosecutor Muriel Wynn and detective Larry Starczek ferreted out Rommy Gandolf, who soon confessed to the crime. Ten years later, Rommy is on death row, just weeks away from his execution. Arthur Raven has been appointed as his lawyer, but he can't imagine that anything new will turn up despite Rommy's claims of innocence. Then Erno Erdai steps forward. Serving a 10-year sentence for assault and dying of cancer, Erno claims that he, not Rommy, committed the murders in the diner. Arthur is skeptical at first, but he wants to believe in his client, so soon he is pushing the case forward with all his might. Muriel and Larry are incensed, certain that, despite Erno's claims, Rommy is guilty. Gillian Sullivan, the judge who heard Rommy's case and sentenced him, is reluctantly drawn back into the legal wrangling. Turow does an excellent job of balancing the twists and turns of the case with his characters' equally complicated personal lives and relationships, making for a well-rounded, exciting, introspective thriller. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374281602
• ISBN 13: 9780374281601
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448