Testimony by Scott Turow

Fifty year old Bill ten Boom decides he needs a fresh start in life.  He leaves his wife and family and forfeits his partnership in a prestigious law firm.  He has no plans other than to enjoy life in a different setting.  Then an old law school buddy recommends him to be a prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in The Hague where war crimes and other international crimes against humanity are prosecuted.  Boom reluctantly takes the job and is assigned to a ten year old case in Bosnia where 400 Gypsy refugees vanished at the end of the Bosnian war.

Boom finds one witness, Ferko Rincic, the sole survivor of the massacre.  Ferko testifies about his friends and family being herded in the night to a nearby cave and being buried alive inside as explosives are used to seal the cave entrance closed.  Ferko’s sketchy description leads to several possible suspects for the crime.  They include a disgraced U.S. major general, a former soldier reporting to the general now turned military contractor in Bosnia, a former brutal Serbian leader, and a possible conspiracy.  Boom hires bull dozers and back hoes to dig up the cave in search of physical remains of the massacre.  But physical evidence doesn’t match Ferko’s testimony and Boom is forced to investigate Ferko and his lawyer as well as the other possible suspects.

While this is an interesting tale, I didn’t find it thrilling or all that intriguing… in fact, a little slow at times.  I’ve read most of Scott Turow’s books because Presumed Innocent is one of the best legal thrillers I’ve ever read.  I even remember exactly where and when I read it, on vacation at Nags Head, NC in June 1990.  Nothing Turow has written since measures up… and yet I hope.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance look at this one.