Cheap Reversible Errors (Book) (Scott Turow) Price

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Customer Reviews of Reversible Errors

Always dependable for a gripping character-based story
I've been a fan of Scott Turow's writing since his law school memoir, ONE-L, which he published in 1977 -- ten years before his first novel. He has a terrific talent for incrementally developing his characters, slowly introducing the reader into their minds and lives, as he demonstrates again with Muriel Wynn, the driven chief deputy prosecuting attorney, and Larry Starczek, a talented homicide detective. The two of them have been having a largely destructive relationship for many years, and while neither of them is really a "bad guy," they're aren't entirely good guys, either. In other words, they're real people. The same is true of Arthur Raven, the corporate attorney who gets appointed by the federal court to be counsel for Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph in the last round of appeals on his way to execution. Arthur, who is a bundle of personal problems and contradictions, is nevertheless the closest thing in this story to a wholly innocent person. Then there's Gillian Sullivan, the ex-judge who originally sentenced Gandolph, but who subsequently went down for bribery and is only recently out of prison herself; she is in many ways an admirable person at base, trying hard to rediscover her place in a much more limited world with Arthur's help. As always, Turow also builds a complex but wholly believable mystery plot -- rather slowly at the beginning of the book but gathering speed by page 100 -- doling out reasonable clues but not really giving anything away. (This ain't Agatha Christie.) While the author still indulges in a number of minor but annoying grammatical idiosyncrasies, and often seems to have trouble making his verb tenses agree, I will continue to look forward eagerly to his next novel.

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A story about the search for truth and personal redemption
Rommy Gandolph is on death row for the murder of three people in a diner when corporate lawyer Arthur Raven is assigned by the court to represent him in his final appeal before execution. Raven resentfully goes through the motions of representation until he receives word that another inmate, now dying from cancer, may have new evidence. Raven takes up the crusade of proving that Gandolph, a small time drug user and thief with a low IQ. was framed for the triple murder that put him on death row.

As the title suggests, the book follows both the errors made when Gandolph was convicted in 1991 and the discovery of new evidence and witnesses. But the story is not really about Gandolph, but about the three of the people who were central to the original story and current defense attorney Raven.

Raven works with the judge at Gandolph's original trial, Gillian Sullivan, in getting the new evidence. Sullivan, recently released from prison for taking bribes and a recovering drug addict is drawn to Raven, a hard working attorney who is unable to sustain personal relationships. The unlikely couple, a beautiful ex judge in her late 40s and an awkward driven attorney in his 30s, develop an unusual kinship. This is one of the two key relationships at the core of this story. The other relationship is that between the prosecuting attorney of Gandolph's case, Muriel Wynn, and Larry Starczek the original detective on the case. Wynn is now married to a wealthy but aloof businessman and running for DA and is put into contact with Starczek with whom she had a long term affair at the time of the Gandolph trial. Both question what happened over the years and whether they made the right choices. Wynn and Starczek have different motives for ensuring that Gandolph is executed for the murders.

The first third of this book alternates between flashbacks to the original events in 1991 to reveal what happened at the arrest and trial and 2001 when the new evidence is presented. This part of the book is somewhat tedious but the pace picks up nicely in the rest of the book. The relationship between Raven and Sullivan becomes central to the story and is as much a part of the redemption theme as is the work to free Gandolph. The final resolution of the story tests that relationship as well as Raven's core beliefs in the legal system.

Be aware that this is not a traditional legal thriller due to the key focus on relationships but it is still a very satisfying story.

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Could Have Been A Brilliant Court Drama
Many of the reviews comment positively on the large amount of space devoted to the character's lives outside the strict confines of the plot. In my opinion, however, this was the downfall of this, otherwise superb, courtroom novel. At 350 pages this would have been a brilliant page-turner, at 550 pages it dragged a lot.

The basic plot is certainly enough to maintain interest through the sidelines, though. The early part of the novel spends part of it's time in 1991 when a policeman who "had the right man" and a very ambitious junior DA (also his lover) 'assisted' a mentally subnormal man ("Squirrel") into confessing to three murders - a confession that ended up giving him the death penalty. Jump forwards 10 years and we have his appeals lawyer starting to dig into a few murky circumstances that shed serious doubt on the case.

Turow does a great job of keeping our interest in the various murder suspects; the original assistant DA is now highly placed to become the next DA and doesn't want this to ruin her chances of election; the policeman anxious to put charges of coercement behind him; the appeals lawyer, finding a new love of the law in the process; the original judge, having fallen on hard times herself, second-guessing her decisions. The machinations of the prosecutors is handled masterfully and, of course, we have the twists and turns expected.

Unfortunately, this is interrupted frequently by tedious chapters that add nothing to the plot and, actually, add little to the characters we see. Pages and pages of very similar dialog do nothing. Now, some will argue that I'm just being shallow and buying into the constraints of the genre. Perhaps. I'm certainly not adverse to heavyweight material (see my review of Joyce's Ulyssees) but this isn't particuarly good and it does seriously impede the flow of the book.

It seems from other reviewers that this was a departure for Turow. I'll certainly give him another chance but, for me, this book will always be a little soured by all the things in it that shouldn't have been there.