Suspect by Scott Turow
Scott Turow is a courageous man. At age 73, he’s an accomplished attorney, an acclaimed author of legal thrillers, and the rare big-time thriller author whose best work transcends into serious literature. He could rest on myriad laurels or simply go formulaic, cranking out what worked so well in the past. He wouldn’t be the first. Instead, Turow chose a far-more difficult and interesting path for his new novel, Suspect (Grand Central Publishing).
This upstanding, white-male baby-boomer decided to write a book in which the main character is Clarice “Pinky” Granum, a young bisexual female private investigator with a repressed drug habit, tattoos, brightly colored hair and all the attitude that implies. In the author’s notes at the book’s end, he says it was no easy task to make Pinky real and authentic, and he’s quick to thank others who helped.
It works. Really well. Telling this story through Pinky Granum’s first-person eyes converts Suspect from a solid, well-plotted police-and-courtroom thriller into something unusually fresh and interesting.
AN INVESTIGATOR WITH SECRETS GETS CAUGHT UP IN A POLICE SCANDAL
Turow fans will recognize familiar settings. The deteriorating old community of Highland Isle in fictional Kindle County could remind you very much of parts of Turow’s native (and mine) Chicago area. There’s also a character bridge from Pinky to Sandy Stern, the star lawyer of past Turow stories. In Suspect, Stern is elderly and retired, but still excited to give Pinky, his granddaughter, advice while trying without much success to protect her from doing things that seem too rash and impulsive.
Pinky used to work for Stern as a paralegal until the veteran litigator closed shop. Now, she’s investigating for frumpy attorney Rik Dudek, whose late mother married Sandy Stern. Dudek is a bit of a lawyer wanna-be, wishing he could get the huge cases his stepfather litigated. Instead, he accepts the caseload of most blue-collar lawyers, a stew of lower-level criminal defense, workers’ compensation disputes and other personal injury cases.
Dudek’s potential break into the big time comes in the case of an old friend, Lucia Gomez, the Highland Isle police chief. As a Latina woman trying to lead an old-male-buddy police department, Gomez faces plenty of challenges. Now three male officers have accused her of soliciting sex in exchange for promotions to higher ranks. Are they telling the truth? Are they just making things up to get back at Gomez? Is there blackmail involved? Maybe it’s all of the above.
Predictably, Gomez’s plight has all the ingredients necessary to become a sensationalistic hit in national media, adding to the pressure. She turns to Dudek for help to represent her in a grand jury investigation in which all the local forces of political power, both seen and unseen, seem aligned. Gomez also seems to have her own secrets that she’s reluctant to share with her attorney and his investigator.
AN UNCONVENTIONAL APPROACH RESULTS IN NEW LEADS
This is the stuff of a classic Turow thriller, and Pinky is our spirited and opinionated guide. She spent much of her youth experimenting with all sorts of things and failing at earlier professions, including washing out at the police academy. But we learn pretty quickly that she would’ve made a great cop if only she didn’t have such a problem with authority. As she begins investigating the Gomez case, she shows an uncanny ability to see angles, possibilities and evidence that others don’t.
Parallel to the Gomez case, she grows suspicious of the secretive, next-door neighbor in her Highland Isle apartment building. He seems to have skills in high-tech surveillance and unusual interest in what’s going on at a nearby manufacturing plant. She starts following him. Her grandfather warns it’s too risky to continue, but it wouldn’t be much of a story if she listened to that advice.
Pinky will get to know that neighbor quite well as these two plot threads begin to overlap. The changes and revelations forced on her as she navigates both those paths in Highland Isle are what make Suspect special.
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About Scott Turow:
Scott Turow is the author of many bestselling works of fiction, including The Last Trial, Testimony, Identical, Innocent, Presumed Innocent and The Burden of Proof, and two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide and have been adapted into movies and television projects. He has frequently contributed essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The Atlantic.
