Turow Following In His Footsteps

It's hard enough to make a successful career in one field these days, but Scott Turow seems to have defied the odds. When not in his plush office in a major Chicago law firm, he works at home on his MacIntosh computer, writing bestselling books. His first novel, Presumed Innocent, was so popular on paper that its story was transferred to celluloid, and became one of this month's top grossing feature films.

The Burden of Proof

By Scott Turow

Farrar Straus Giroux

515 pages; $22.95

How does one follow such extracurricular success? Apparently, judging from the content of Turow's recently released novel, The Burden of Proof, you stick to what got you there. For Turow, what got you there is an engaging and intricate mystery that pays careful attention to the ins and outs of the legal system. Burden of Proof even retains as its protagonist a character from Presumed Innocent, the defense lawyer Sandy Stern.

Despite the similarities to its predecessor, Burden of Proof creates a separate identity for itself. Its borrowed character, Stern, figured only in the minor role of legal mastermind in Presumed Innocent. In his recent book, Turow creates the fuller character of a man tortured by his wife's death.

Burden of Proof begins when Stern returns home from one of his many business trips to another city and finds that his wife, Clara, has committed suicide by running the car motor all day with the garage door closed. Stern's initial investigation into her suicide turns up few clues, but he soon discovers that she has been treated for herpes by a doctor who lives next door. This is a fairly clear sign to Stern that Clara's disappointment with him goes back for a long time.

During the investigation of the suicide, Stern also has to handle another family matter. His client and brother-in-law, Dixon Hartnell, is under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office for securities fraud. Hartnell, who owns a brokerage house, has long held a reputation as a ruthless businessman. His practices have always teetered on the illegal, and he is accused of using inside information to make a profit on the Chicago futures market. Hartnell's case is complicated by testimony given--in exchange for immunity--by Stern's son-in-law.

Near the end of the novel, Turow reveals the stunning yet plausible connection between these two seemingly unrelated storylines. Resisting the pitfall of many a mystery novelist, Turow does not rely too much on coincidence. The connection is also plausible largely because Turow remains true to his characters.

That connection, however, might just be too stunning. Turow never creates enough suspense for you to particularly care about the technical brilliance of it. He has you convinced for perhaps too long that you clearly understand what is going on.

Turow also devotes far too much time to certain situations that simply are not compelling. Once you know Clara once cheated on her husband, for example, it's not worth waiting 400 more pages to know who it was. Turow fails to make the Dixon investigation suspenseful for most of the book because there is no indication how it relates to the issue of Clara's death. Securities fraud arouses curiosity for a few minutes on the evening news, but it's not really the stuff that 500 page novels should be made of.

Despite the strength of the mysteries, much of the attention in Burden of Proof is on Stern's own personal development as a result of his wife's suicide. For the most part, this process makes a strong story. Turow makes a convincing case for the profound impact Clara's death has on him, and as a result keeps Stern's several-page-long thoughts about her from becoming tiresome.

Clara's absence is a persistent and powerful reminder to Stern of his foreign past. Stern clings to the idea that his marriage into a highly refined and Americanized family is a disguise for his Argentinian roots. The suicide provokes powerful memories for Stern because it was her father that gave Stern his first job.

While the book's plot is not always able to sustain suspense, Turow's style is perhaps the book's most consistent and sturdy feature. Turow writes simply and directly, with sentences that rarely extend for more than two lines. But though they are short, he packs a lot of description into them. Occasionally, Turow carries an extended metaphor that is pithily expressive; he once ties together in one paragraph Clara's preoccupation with music and death.

Turow's adeptness at writing in such a direct style is perhaps essential to his characterization of Stern as calm and unemotional, as Stern speaks with curt and deliberate phrases himself. Turow is less successful, however, in his attempts at scripting other characters' dialogues. In his efforts to create distinct and eccentric characters, he occasionally makes different characters appear to have the same, hyper personality.

The very end of the book is a profound disappointment; Turow creates a most unlikely event that provides the most optimistic future outcome for all parties. The abrupt, trite ending seems to suggest that Turow got tired of writing and yearned for the comfort of his plush law office, and simply wanted to tack on a quick ending.

Still, Turow does seem to approach his writing with an unusual degree of zest more often than not. While Burden of Proof does not shine quite as often as one would like, its bright spots more than compensate for its shortcomings.