I've been of longtime fan of Scott Turow's and was thus excited to have the opportunity to read an advance copy of his most recent novel, Testimony, due for release in May 2017. In Testimony, Bill Ten Boom, a former Kindle County prosecutor, has retired from his law firm partnership and left his life behind, including his wife, children and home. He accepts a position with the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court at the Hague and it is here that the novel opens as he questions a witness, Ferko, about the alleged mass murder of 400 Roma (Gypsy) refugees ten years earlier in 2004. Ferko testifies that he watched from a hiding place as a group of armed men came into the refugee camp in Bosnia, forced the entire village out of their homes and buried them alive in a nearby cave. Only Ferko survived. While there appears to be little question that the 400 Roma disappeared, Boom, as he is known to his friends, quickly realizes there is no agreement as to who is responsible for their murder or even whether they actually were murdered. The investigation that follows takes Boom back to the US and to Bosnia as he attempts to discover what really happened.

Testimony is a long book and it took me some time to get through it, but only because there is a lot to absorb in an intricate and oftentimes complex plot. Along the way, Scott Turow manages to make the ICC and the underlying political and social issues accessible and relatable. His descriptions of Holland and Bosnia are some of the best parts of the book. The plot itself has many twists and turns on its way to a very satisfying and somewhat surprising conclusion.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I've previously read many of Turow's Kindle County novels so I was very happy to see this book is coming out. 

The main character, Boom, was US Attorney in Kindle County, and was then in private practice. As this book opens, he is in his mid-fifties and has tendered his resignation from his law practice. He's ready for something new but is currently aimless. At this, a couple of old friends show up and offer him a job as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. 

There is an allegation of a massacre of Gypsies that occurred near a US/NATO base toward the end of the Bosnian conflict. The investigation of this is the driver of the story. 

Along the way, an ex-wife and kids, a respected general who screwed up, a couple of love interests, a peek into how the ICC works, war criminals, Gypsies, and a rather odd character named Atilla all make appearances. We learn a little about the former Yugoslavia and a little about the Dutch. 

All in all, it is a good read and a relatively quick read. Recommended.

4 and 1 / 2 stars

This book examines the missing 400 Roma that vanished during the Bosnian war from a refugee camp. 

At the age of fifty, Bill ten Boom leaves his marriage, his home, his job and finally his country. All of his relatives, friends and colleagues had pat reasons for why he acted thus, but the truth was that for all his success, he never “felt truly at home” with himself. So he went to Holland and the International Criminal Court. 

In this job, he has to balance politics, evidence, heartfelt stories and his own feelings to reach the truth. It is not easy. It is a prescription for sleepless nights. 

While it has been a long time since I’ve read any of Scott Turow’s novels, he doesn’t fail to still write moving and thrilling fiction. (Or, in this case, semi-fiction because while not in dispute are the missing 400 Roma what is in dispute is exactly what happened to them.)  While this book is a departure from his usual novels, but it is still remarkably well written and plotted. His descriptions are brilliant. He can evoke a mood of seriousness like no other. Well done, Mr. Turow!

I want to thank Netgalley and GrandCentral Publishing for forwarding to me a copy of this interesting and well written book for me to read.

Testimony is a good but not great book. Although we don't know all the details until the last 15% or so of the book, the reader can easily guess the broad-stroke outline. Turow writes well and it is this ability that helps him transcend the mundane into a fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable novel.

Scott Turow writes intelligently, but I found myself a little bored with this one. The complexity of the number of parties to the legal action, a farrago of actors involved in the Bosnian War, was confusing, and sorting it out wasn’t all that exciting.  The ongoing lapse into the protagonist’s sexual exploits was a little overdone, in my opinion, and didn’t seem to me to be all that essential to the plot. 

I also thought that the author’s insistence on retaining the conceit of the previous setting of fictional Kindle County and the fictional Trappers baseball team served no purpose whatsoever except to allow the main character to name-drop a few of the characters from Turow’s previous legal procedurals, which also seemed totally gratuitous.

Finally, I felt Turow could have expanded a bit more on the role of contractors in recent military engagements by the U.S. instead of wasting so much narrative space with sex and scenery.  The conclusion left me feeling like not all that much had happened.

It has been a long time since I've read a book by Scott Turow, and I had forgotten how good his books can be.  Testimony is a complicated and complex novel.  Complicated because finding evidence and prosecuting war crimes often involves an intricate, convoluted maze that leads to unexpected discoveries.  Complex because of all of the human emotions and relationships involved.

This is not a courtroom drama, but the International Criminal Court's investigation of a war crime  makes Testimony a suspenseful legal thriller.  Bill Ten Boom, embarks on a new phase of his career when tasked with investigating an event that occurred ten years previously.  

During the turbulent conclusion of the Bosnian war, approximately 400 Roma disappeared from a refugee camp and none have been heard of since.  That much is beyond refute, but what happened to these people is still unknown.  No mass grave has been found, but friends and family members have not heard from any of the refugees from the camp in the ten years since that April night. The stories about the missing refugees are rife and opinions vary widely.  

Afraid of retaliation, the lone survivor of the camp, Ferko Rincic has only recently been persuaded to come forward to give his account.  Rincic testifies that he was in an outdoor privy when armed men in masks descended on the camp at midnight, herded the refugees into trucks, disgorged them into a cave, then set off an avalanche burying  the refugees alive.  In order for the ICC to prosecute the case, however, Ten Boom and his investigator Goos must discover evidence that the event actually happened.   

Only when factual evidence of the massacre is discovered, can the investigation move to determining who was responsible. 

There are plenty of twists and turns as Ten Boom and Goos plunge into a rabbit hole of partial information, deliberate deception, and inadvertent misconceptions.  Bosnia is still a dangerous place in 2015, and as Ten Boom and Goos investigate, their opinions about whom to believe and whom to trust change as the investigation progresses.  

(I wish Esme had been omitted from the plot; while she does offer more mystery, she really was not necessary and becomes a sort of side story.  Someone else could have been responsible for discovering Ferko Rincic.  She is my only quibble about the book--just a personal thing.) 

The information about the ICC in the Hague, the way the investigation is carried out, the aftermath of all of the ethnic violence in Bosnia, and the cover-ups --  make fascinating reading. This is another fine example of Turow's work, but it is also another of those uncomfortable novels that make us uneasy.  Black and white and shades of gray.

from the Author's Note:
"So how much of this is true?  Every novelist wants to answer that question the same way:  All of it--and none."
Turow says that none of the  characters represents "anyone who has lived" and that he altered actual occurrences  for dramatic effect, but he does list some of the sources of inspiration, often from Human Rights Watch Reports.  

Now, I have to go back and see if my library has copies of some of the books I've missed in the Kindle County series.

Read in February; blog post scheduled for May 1, 2017

NetGalley/Grand Central Publishing

Legal Thriller/Crime.   May 16, 2017.  Print version:  496 pages.