The Burden of Proof

By: Scott Turow

Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd

Turow's acclaimed second novel, which topped international bestseller lists, is now available in trade paperback. Sandy Stern, the brilliant defense attorney from Presumed Innocent, faces an event so emotionally shattering that no part of his life is left untouched. It reveals a family caught in a maelstrom of hidden crimes, shocking secrets, and warring passions.

Not in the league of Innocent and Presumed Innocent

I came to this having become a fan of Turow through Innocent and Presumed Innocent. Sadly this one doesn't quite measure up: I found the story jumps around just a little too much, and the plot twists itself through enough loops to end up confusing and contrived by the end.

Great twists. Not quite as good as presumption

This good ultimately develops to be exciting and interesting. However the character development and psychology, while interesting, drags it down a bit. I thought the reader's voice was less pleasant than others I have heard.

Dismal

Not very interesting unreasonably complex and unlikely a disappointment
Characters not believable unlike Scott’s prequel

Great story. Long

I was excited to find a long book to listen to. The story moved right along. I did not like the music they played at the ending and beginning of the chapters. That took a lot away from it for me, but I hung in there and listen to it all and I’m glad I did. It was very good.

Not Nearly As good As Presumed Innocent

In "Burden of Proof", lawyer and novelist Scott Turow returns the character of Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, the smooth-spoken, Argentine-Jewish defense attorney introduced in the earlier novel, "Presumed Innocent". In that earlier novel, Stern defended a prosecutor in a high-profile murder case. In "Burden", Stern now has all the questions. Just when his existence seemed routine enough, Stern returns home from a business trip to find his wife dead - an apparent suicide. Reeling from the loss, Stern must also confront a grand jury proceeding against his client and brother in law, Dixon Hartnell. A web of complex (and suspicious) financial transactions involving futures-trading on Kindle County market run by Hartnell has whet the interest of the US Attorney's office, itself run by a foe of Stern. Though Hartnell is the sort of guy who routinely seems to hover at the edge of indictment for something, the charges now offer the chance of landing the embattled broker in a federal lockup and, because Stern's son-in law works for Hartnell, threaten to tear at the fragile Stern family. Into this mix of family and legal problems, Turow throws in Stern's romancing of his enemy at the US Attorney's office and of a nearby neighbor, his suspicions harbored against a neighbor who may have had an affair with Stern's now dead wife, and the story of his own romance, years ago, with Clara Mittler-Stern.
"Burden" has Scott Turow's great prose and obsessive character dissection, but it's not as enveloping a book as "Presumed Innocent". The sense of an underlying secret isn't as enticing as the murder investigation in the earlier book, and the characters don't grab you as well either. Most annoying is Stern whose silver-tongued erudition was cute when he was a supporting character in the older book. Dixon Hartnell would have been a more interesting choice of main character, but the plot makes that impossible. Turow dangles the names of characters from the first book just to get our attentions (ex-PA Ray Horgan almost becomes the defense lawyer for Stern's embattled son in-law; Rusty Sabich is referred in passing as "Judge Sabich"; the specter of the corrupt Mayor Augie Bolcarro seems to hang like a smog over Kindle County) but remains it's own book. Even the fictional choice of legal venue seems troublesome - exchanging the Kindle county court in "Presumed" with the anonymous Federal Court here. Kindle County, which seemed so real and unique in the older book seems just another mid-west city. The novel concentrates instead on the byzantine relationships of its main characters, but after you've finished, you wonder why you should care. This is a pretty good novel, but it loses something and suffers in comparison to its prequel.

John Bedford Lloyd was outstanding with the delivery of the story