The Last Trial (Kindle County Legal Thriller, #11)

by Scott Turow

Now, when his life stands in relief, as observed by the backward-looking eye, the trauma of Clara’s suicide looms like a skyscraper. He has been trying to crawl out from the shadow of mystification and guilt for decades.

chandeliers—“but they are all beautiful places in spirit, because they are where we as a community come together to try to do justice—all of us, lawyers and laypeople, the judge, the court staff, you as jurors, all of us united in the same all-important enterprise.

them, ‘hypotheses of innocence.’

thinking, But how did Innis know about the problems with g-Livia in the first place? Who told her, if not Kiril? Stern cannot answer those questions, for the jurors or even for himself.

by the demonstrated perjurer Innis McVie.

“Okay, most of the time. But he could live a really good life for another decade—if you don’t say ‘Okay’ when he decides to climb Mount Everest. This verged on suicidal. Is he still depressed about Helen?”

and Marta says that Sonny and she took turns administering mouth-to-mouth. “Pinky was the hero, though,” Marta adds.

Those moments, awaiting the announcement of a verdict, are dizzying.

especially given Marta’s prediction from the start that Kiril chose Stern as his lawyer in order to lie to him. And then there is the lingering question concerning who deliberately ran Stern off the road.

“I am sorry about that, Innis, but generally speaking when you commit a federal felony, that is one of the risks.” Her mouth pinches in bitterly.

opponents. The public scorns lawyers—except their own—but Stern has relished their company, the particular kind of smarts so many share. For better or worse, they are his people.

“Democracy and the rule of law are much more fragile than most Americans realize.”

Kiril demurs but clearly enjoys Stern’s gratitude. It leaves him in his favored role of grand importance.

the Argentine courts move no more quickly than trees grow.