Join us this Wednesday for an evening with bestselling author Scott Turow at the Lecture Hall at 7 p.m.! If you’re not familiar with Turow’s work, check out this review of his new novel Testimony by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Board Member Mary Alice Gorman. Gorman is a former bookstore owner, teacher and head of the Pittsburgh chapter of the ACLU, among many other accomplishments, so you know you can trust her opinion on mysteries and thrillers!
For more on Turow, check out our interview with him.
Every once in a great while a reader has an experience in reading that spills over into real life. For me, it happened on a Viking cruise along the shores of Croatia when I was riveted to the pages of Scott Turow’s new novel Testimony, set in the aftermath of the war in the former Yugoslavia (which includes current countries like Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, etc.).
By day my shampoo was by a hairdresser from Montenegro, my waiter was an engineer from Bosnia and I was chatting with a bartender from Sarajevo over cappuccino (all countries that separated from Yugoslavia in the ’90s). By night I was engaged in an investigation into a brutal war that left permanent scars on this region.
Testimony traces the midlife crisis of former prosecutor Bill ten Boom who is lured to the Hague and the International Criminal Court—the organization charged with prosecuting crimes against humanity. A compelling case of an entire Roma refuge camp missing in the aftermath of the Bosnian war comes back to haunt the investigators, survivors, gangsters, witnesses and even our US government in the catastrophic war that was but a blip on the US nighttime news.
With elegant skill, Turow plots a fascinating glimpse of a law for survival and a law for the political balance of power in today’s court of the world. I could not stop hearing the song “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” run through my head following the military, legal and political characters who walk the taut and uniquely satisfying Turow road. The intellectual and passionate energy that pulses through this one will have you panting for fresh air…and perhaps turning to your Library for details of the time and place. This is Turow at his finest.
Don’t forget to request your copy of Testimony (or, get your very own copy when you buy a ticket to Turow’s event on Wednesday!)
-Mary Alice Gorman, CLP Board of Directors