It is one of those books where the emotion doesn't kick in until halfway through, when lawyer Rusty, charged with murder, begins to ponder the horrors of prison life. Of course, once the courtroom drama commences, we have no shortage of emotion. We get elation and despondency as each side wins and loses battles on their way to the final verdict.
My caveats are:
The sexy scenes. We discussed Carolyn and male fantasy last week. Rusty went nuts over her, but I yawned.
The darkness. Rusty's father survived World War II, not as chipper American soldier who handed out chocolate bars, but as a desperate Croatian or some such, fleeing gunfire. Survival required desperate measures, so desperate that, after he settled in the United States, he lived as though life would always be as tough and unpleasant as what he had left behind. Lawyer Rusty inherits that pessimism. To him, life breaks people, end of story.
Next week's book is all doom and gloom too. I think this calls for a recipe of unremitting darkness, as in dark chocolate. Perhaps you should not attempt Turow's book without a plate of Caramel Fudge Cheesecake nearby.
Uh huh. Decadent and dark. I guess you wouldn't dare list the calories and fat.
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