Identify Books To The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2)
| Original Title: | The Burden of Proof |
| ISBN: | 0446677124 (ISBN13: 9780446677127) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Kindle County Legal Thriller #2 |
| Characters: | Alejandro "Sandy" Stern |
| Literary Awards: | Society of Midland Authors Award for Adult Fiction (1991) |
Scott Turow
Paperback | Pages: 608 pages Rating: 4.07 | 33709 Users | 341 Reviews
Chronicle In Favor Of Books The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2)
Following the simultaneous written and cinematic success of its predecessor, "Presumed Innocent," Scott Turow again returns to Kindle County for another dramatic exploration of the emotional vagaries of lives wrapped in the curious legal subculture of American society. In Turow's "Burden of Proof," we find ourselves three years following the events of "Presumed Innocent" as a spectator in the life of Sandy Stern, the attorney who famously defended Rusty Sabich in the murder trial from the prior story.This time, there is no murder, but there is a death; the suicide of Sandy's wife, Clara, mated to a seemingly inexplicable withdrawal from her personal trust fund just days before her death. Her death and the unexplained financial transaction leave Stern with more questions than answers, holding fast only to the too-vivid memory of his having discovered the deceased Clara in their garage.
Amid Stern's personal tragedy unfolds the increasing encroachment of the legal issues surrounding one of his more problematic clients, Dixon Hartnell, a man of decidely questionable ethics, owner of a large investment corporation, and married to Silvia, one of Stern's sisters. His employment of Stern's son-in-law John, married to daughter Kate, as a floor trader at the Kindle exchange doesn't make things any simpler.
Amid the ever tightening circle of influence that an unfolding scandal around Hartnell reveals is the introspection that Clara's death forces on Stern, one wherein he tries to assess his distance as a husband and father, and how his skill at matters of law institutionalized that distance to the point of distraction, creating flawed relationships, incomplete perspectives of his own family, and, ultimately, a troubling picture of himself. He sees himself idealized too much by his other sister, Marta, and fundamentally alienated from his son, Peter, a successful physician.
Turow orchestrates an articulately choreographed dance among Stern's family, his neighbors, and the professional peers into a narrative that deviates from its tightly defined story in only a few places. There is little wasted motion, and correspondingly few wasted characters. From the representatives of the US attorney's office that involve themselves in Hartnell's issues, to the office flunkies that manage his company's trading operations, to the neighbors more involved with Sandy following Clara's death, each is woven with a credible and important role in "Burden of Proof."
Turow draws his characters with sculptor-like precision and insight, with the cognitive depth of a high-resolution mental camera. As one might contrast his writing style with that of John Grisham's typically brisk pacing, Turow's is methodical, deliberate, and purposeful, articulating the finest detail from the subtlest nuance. If Grisham is the quick pacing of a staccato offering, Turow's is the legato counterpart. Even ancillary characters are richly conceived, even if they are nothing more than secondary to the plot, and the richness strengthens the novel's reality with each page.
For all of Turow's literary excellence, however, comes a distasteful tempering. Turow holds nothing back in the narrative in describing (among others) Stern's personal exploits as a newly single man among multiple female encounters. The description, in the abstract, is understandable as character exposition, but the lurid depths to which Turow sinks in his narrative grossly tarnishes the broader epic with details better left to magazines rightly delivered in plain brown wrappers. The vulgarity and crassness with which Turow communicates these wholly unnecessary details belies his obvious skill with and mastery of the written word. Where "Burden of Proof" was my first Turow novel, this issue alone serves as a primary reason it may well be my last.
While the narrative of "Burden of Proof" is efficient, it isn't without flaw. Midway through the text, Stern's younger-days courtship of Clara and his edgy relationship with her father are interwoven in flashback. As the latter third of the novel unfolds, these flashbacks become intrusive and needlessly break the narrative momentum as the story progresses to its conclusion. Moreover, Turow waits almost too long to move the story into a higher gear, as Stern's sexual escapades and neighborly intrusions push "Proof" perilously close to the border of soap opera, right down to the details of discussions had over privet-hedge trimming.
"Burden of Proof" is, at times, a masterfully woven story of personal insight, of a man arriving too late to his own midlife crisis, forced to construct for himself a new future and a new reality beset by unfathomable circumstances and a confluence of malevolence from his own family. Exceedingly raw sexual content, too much early lethargy, and a frustrating mixture of backstory told in retrospect amid the advancing narrative darkens and diminishes the mastery.
And that's nothing less than a shame.
Particularize Epithetical Books The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2)
| Title | : | The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2) |
| Author | : | Scott Turow |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 608 pages |
| Published | : | December 1st 2000 by Grand Central Publishing (first published 1990) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Legal Thriller. Crime |
Rating Epithetical Books The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2)
Ratings: 4.07 From 33709 Users | 341 ReviewsArticle Epithetical Books The Burden of Proof (Kindle County Legal Thriller #2)
I wonder how it is possible for a writer to debut on the scene with a book so good as Presumed Innocent, and then produce such a bad and crappy novel as this one.There is some unexciting court drama here, yes, but then ST strove more towards writing a normal novel and inserted a lot of sex, a bunch of dull dialogues, plus deceit, a highly dysfunctional family, infidelities left and right, some drugs and alcohol, intergenerational conflict... and the result is just a very mediocre soap opera, atAn excellent read and a book that I enjoyed more for the psychological aspect than the legal thriller (that was intrinsic to the psychological part of the book). I expected a John Grisham and I encountered an amalgam of a psychological autopsy combined with the blow by blow description of the legal case. The story is two fold: a distibuished criminal attorney returns form a business trip and finds his wife of 30 years dead by suicide and at the same time he is embroiled in the defense of his
Scott Turow had written an award-winning novel Presumed Innocent in 1987. In 1990, he released this second fiction The Burden of Proof that I picked up to read only recently. Scott Turow is a trained and practising lawyer. I was drawn to reading his other books because of Presumed Innocent where the plot, the twists and turns, and the cut and thrust in a court-room setting were so clearly written for a non-lawyer like me to follow the story-line. The Burden of Proof revolves around the family of
This book took me forever to read and after all was said and done, nothing really happened. It's supposed to be a legal thriller but there's very little to do with the law in it and it's definitely not very thrilling. It's the story of Sandy Stern, after learning his wife has committed suicide, tries to deal with his new life and a legal issue his brother in law is having. The majority of the book is spent with Sandy throwing himself at lots of different women, now that he's "free" I guess, and
**SPOILERS** I got almost half way through this book and got fed up with the legal thriller side of this book. Illegal stock exchange? F**king yawn. However, provided the other side of this story held up - family crime drama - I kept going. Mistake. His wife kills herself. He discovers she had herpes so he gets himself checked... he gets his son whos a doctor to inspect him? Why would you not just save your son the trauma of inspecting your d*ck and go to a regular doctor. Weirdest part of the
The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow is supposed to be about a family caught in a maelstrom of hidden crimes, shocking secrets, and warring passions. I found it quite different. It is a Soap Opera that never should have been. The characters in the book could have been interesting. In fact some of the sub plots would have made good books. I found The Burden of Proof to be just a burden to read. The book was a jumbled mess.
I really tried to like this book but the murder/suicide investigation of Sandy Sterns wife got way too complicated, also the writing style was dry. One more thing, there was too much family drama which proved to be quite a distraction in the wake of the mothers murder- like celebrating Kates pregnancy right after the mother died, I felt that was too soon. I do agree that we need to celebrate the good things in life, but that was just too much. Lastly, while on the topic of grieving, I do not
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