Reversible Errors
 Scott Turow
 (Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan)
 2002 Farrar, Straus & Giroux
  ISBN: 0374281602

Corporate Lawyer Arthur Raven strives for justice for death-row inmate Rommy “Squirrel” Gandolph.

Sr. Reviewer - Narayan Radhakrishnan writes:

Turow is back--& is as strong as ever. After a five-year gap from thriller writing, Scott Turow, famed author of the bestseller Presumed Innocent (yes, the Harrison Ford movie!) returns in this electrifying legal thriller Reversible Errors. The master legal thriller author this time around questions the justifiability of the death sentence & the State's right to take away life.

Rommy “the Squirrel” Gandolph is an inmate on death row facing execution for murder. Though the murders happened more than a decade back--after the trial, appeals & second appeals, Gandolph is just weeks away from the execution.

Gandolph had earlier confessed to his involvement in the crime to the police & the courts. But now, with only days to spare he says he is not really guilty. A reluctant corporate lawyer, Arthur Raven, has been appointed amicus currie to help Gandolph. Though Raven initially believes “the Squirrel” guilty, new evidence is proving otherwise. However, pitted against Raven is Larry Starczek, the detective who investigated the case & Muriel Wynn who prosecuted it, who is now standing election for the county D.A. Both desperately want Gandolph out of the way for reasons, other than justice. What follows is hardcore legal action with Raven's quest to seek justice for his client.

In the wide world of lawyer-authors, Scott Turow is a class of his own. Until Turow, legal thrillers were rooted in courtrooms--with the Tutt and Mr. Tutt & Perry Mason courtroom dramas. Turow not only took lawyers out of the courtroom, he gave them more credibility & introduced a new genre in mystery writing, the legal thriller that is not courtroom based. The versatility that the author showed in Presumed Innocent carried on in Pleading Guilty & Burden of Proof continues in this latest thriller, Reversible Errors. Turow captures the essence of the spirit of lawyering, & the law & how wide the line distinguishing law & justice is.

Reversible Errors provides poignant reading. & for the connoisseur of legal thrillers, this is not only a must read, but also a must buy. Put the book right between your copy of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird & Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder.

More from Scott Turow: Personal Injuries; The Laws of Our Fathers; One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School
(03/02/03)

Narayan
2003©Narayan Radhakrishnan
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Associate Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
I am a 26 years old lawyer practicing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. Along with my legal practice, I have finished post-graduate studies for both Business Law & Human Rights. I am a self proclaimed numero-uno legal thriller lover & am the proud owner of all of Grisham's & Turow's novels. I enjoy John Mortimer's Rumpole & relish an occasional Martini & a rare Scot(ch)t-oline with a Patterson on the side.

My work A FICTION OF LAW is now about 500 pages in length & features 500 lawyer authors & 2000 legal thrillers covering a 300 year period - inclusive of entries from the USA, UK, Asia, Europe, China, Middle East etc. Still in search of a publisher.
www.keralatourism.org