literatetexan's review
4.0
Scott Turow is the most literate of writers of legal thrillers, and his insights into his characters and life itself are on full display here. Sandy Stern has always been my favorite of his characters, and this was a fitting last bow for a wonderful character. The Last Trial is also one of those rare books I'd consider re-reading, and soon.
amylow1107's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book for my paralegal class for a book review. I would not have picked this up if I had a choice because I am partial to John Grisham when it comes to legal thrillers. I read this book and found it full of legal and pharmaceutical lingo in all of its 500 pages. Scott Turow is a lawyer and author of a series of books in which his first book in the series is Presumed Innocent which was turned into a movie starring the late Raul Garcia playing the main character and Harrison Ford playing the person accused. This book is the 11th book in the series featuring Alejandro "Sandy" Stern. Sandy is 85 years old and this is his last trial before he takes a final bow to the courtroom. He is hired to defend his friend and Nobel Prize, Kiril Pafko who created a cancer-treating drug. Pafko learns that some patients on the drug died and he also sold some of his own stock after hearing about this. Pafko is charged with fraud, insider trading, and murder. Sandy has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Pafko did not do what he is charged with. With the help of his partner and daughter, Marta, and his granddaughter, Pinky they try this case. As the case progresses, Sandy knows that Pafko is married and has a mistress in which all the women are involved in this case. Sandy has to discover the truth even when he can't reveal it in court.
There is a lot of courtroom drama and law lingo in this book. There is also a side story of who hit Sandy's car which put him in the hospital before the trial began that his granddaughter, Pinky is solving on her own with the permission of Sandy in between court. This could have been another book. Turow does tell a good story of the emotional toll that lawyers deal with in each of their cases. His daughter, Marta who has followed her father in becoming a lawyer and working with Sandy has expressed her desire to retire after this trial. She wants to spend more time with her family. Pinky with her tattoos, piercings, and rough edges that most people don't look past the exterior, Sandy sees something in her that warrants paying attention to. Once the verdict was read, Turow goes on more to give the characters closure but was unneeded.
Would I recommend this book? No, I would recommend others for a legal thriller. 500 pages is a lot for one book that drags on. If you like courtroom drama and all it's legal jargon then book is for you. If not, John Grisham is the way to go!
There is a lot of courtroom drama and law lingo in this book. There is also a side story of who hit Sandy's car which put him in the hospital before the trial began that his granddaughter, Pinky is solving on her own with the permission of Sandy in between court. This could have been another book. Turow does tell a good story of the emotional toll that lawyers deal with in each of their cases. His daughter, Marta who has followed her father in becoming a lawyer and working with Sandy has expressed her desire to retire after this trial. She wants to spend more time with her family. Pinky with her tattoos, piercings, and rough edges that most people don't look past the exterior, Sandy sees something in her that warrants paying attention to. Once the verdict was read, Turow goes on more to give the characters closure but was unneeded.
Would I recommend this book? No, I would recommend others for a legal thriller. 500 pages is a lot for one book that drags on. If you like courtroom drama and all it's legal jargon then book is for you. If not, John Grisham is the way to go!
_alyssabrown's review against another edition
Wasn’t appealing to me 🤷🏼♀️ Found it difficult to follow
readers_block's review
3.0
2.75/5
Not overly enjoyable as far as legal procedurals go. Fairly dry. Lots of pharmaceutical and legal jargon, and in many cases a step by step of a courtroom scene.
Not overly enjoyable as far as legal procedurals go. Fairly dry. Lots of pharmaceutical and legal jargon, and in many cases a step by step of a courtroom scene.
readsleeponrepeat's review against another edition
3.0
As I work in the legal field, I love a good legal thriller, although this one missed the mark for me. I was immediately drawn to this book at Costco to the point of starting the book on the way home. While this was a great story with an ending full of unexpected twists every few pages, I found myself glazing over during large sections I felt were just extra “fluff.” While normally I’d be able to enjoy the story amidst the fluff, I continuously put this book down. I will say that Turnow does do a great job at explaining legal procedure and theory to a layperson. When the story finally hooked me, about halfway through, I couldn’t put it down and read X pages in a sitting. I highly recommend anyone who is already interested in legal thrillers, as this would not be a good segue into the genre.
paovilchis25's review against another edition
4.0
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of the opinions are my own and this did not affect my review in any way.
I have always said that if I didn’t end up studying to become a Doctor I would have become a lawyer. So when I had the chance to read and review this legal thriller I jumped at the idea right away, I wanted to learn more about what it means to be an attorney. Overall I was impressed by this book and how the author managed to keep me engaged throughout this almost 500 page legal book.
In the Last Trial we follow eighty-five years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial.
What I liked most about this book was the way the author writes the courtroom atmosphere, while reading this book I could picture myself standing in a courtroom next to the characters trying to prove Dr. Pafko´s innocence. The book is long, but each word serves a purpose, each word helps the reader understand what is happening and it allows the reader to not only enjoy the reading experience but to also learn what life in a courtroom feels like.
The characters are great, I like how some of the characters are greatly enjoyable and other characters are very unlikeable. Stern and his granddaughter Pinky are by far my favorites and it was interesting to see how the author managed to make the accused Dr. Pafko an unlikeable character and in the end I just wanted for Stern to win his last case but I didn’t care what happened to the accused.
Overall this was a solid legal thriller that was a great introduction to the topic for me. I enjoyed the drama, the investigating aspect of it and I was charmed by how the author writes. I truly recommend this book if you are looking for a book that feels both real and has a touch of fiction intertwined.
I have always said that if I didn’t end up studying to become a Doctor I would have become a lawyer. So when I had the chance to read and review this legal thriller I jumped at the idea right away, I wanted to learn more about what it means to be an attorney. Overall I was impressed by this book and how the author managed to keep me engaged throughout this almost 500 page legal book.
In the Last Trial we follow eighty-five years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial.
What I liked most about this book was the way the author writes the courtroom atmosphere, while reading this book I could picture myself standing in a courtroom next to the characters trying to prove Dr. Pafko´s innocence. The book is long, but each word serves a purpose, each word helps the reader understand what is happening and it allows the reader to not only enjoy the reading experience but to also learn what life in a courtroom feels like.
The characters are great, I like how some of the characters are greatly enjoyable and other characters are very unlikeable. Stern and his granddaughter Pinky are by far my favorites and it was interesting to see how the author managed to make the accused Dr. Pafko an unlikeable character and in the end I just wanted for Stern to win his last case but I didn’t care what happened to the accused.
Overall this was a solid legal thriller that was a great introduction to the topic for me. I enjoyed the drama, the investigating aspect of it and I was charmed by how the author writes. I truly recommend this book if you are looking for a book that feels both real and has a touch of fiction intertwined.
fictionfan's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful finale…
Lawyer Sandy Stern is old now and beginning to fail both physically and mentally, but when Kiril Pafko finds himself in trouble, Sandy agrees to defend him. Sandy’s daughter and legal partner, Marta, has decided to retire and Sandy recognises that he won’t be able to continue without her, so this will be his last case. Marta agrees to stay on till the case is over, and Sandy’s granddaughter, Pinky, is also helping out, both with the casework and as a kind of personal assistant to her ageing grandfather. As the case slowly unfolds, Sandy finds himself reflecting on his long career in the law. Having been diagnosed with cancer, Sandy is also facing his own mortality and finds himself thinking back to the people who have been important in his life – his family and friends. Kiril is one of those friends, a brilliant Nobel prizewinner, who has developed a drug that combats cancer with spectacular results. Too spectacular – Kiril is on trial for suppressing negative studies into the side-effects of the drug, and for the murder of patients who, the prosecution claims, had their lives shortened by taking it. Kiril is also accused of having made a fortune by selling shares in the drug just before the negative studies became public. Although for Sandy the main aim is to have Kiril legally acquitted, Kiril is just as concerned about the damage to his reputation in the scientific community, and Sandy finds that their differing objectives mean that his client oftens impedes his attempts to argue the case on legal grounds.
Sandy Stern first appeared in Presumed Innocent in 1987 and I, along with millions of others, have followed his career ever since. Turow has used him over the series to present a thoughtful and realistic picture of how the law works in the US, slowly and not always achieving true justice, but an essential part of the democratic system of ensuring the rights of the individual. Stern’s cases are usually set among the rich and powerful, and Turow clearly shows that justice depends as much on the quality of lawyer a defendant can afford as on the rights and wrongs of the case. The books are always billed as legal thrillers which I think does them an injustice. To me, these long ago crossed the line into literary fiction – they are far more about the human condition in all its frailties and strengths than about exciting courtroom drama, and the writing is of the highest quality. Calling them thrillers I’m sure attracts readers who are disappointed by the slow pace while putting off readers who would appreciate the deep concentration on character, the mechanics of the law and the society that depends on its judgements.
Turow rarely shows the legal system operating corruptly. In most cases, the judges want to do justice fairly according to the law, and the lawyers want to do the best for their clients, whether prosecuting or defending. Stern is a moral man who cares deeply about acting with integrity, even when it would be easier professionally or personally to cut a corner or two. That doesn’t mean he won’t defend someone who he believes has indeed broken the law; like Atticus Finch, Stern believes that justice only works when every accused person has the right to a defence, guilty or innocent. He also knows that even good people occasionally do wrong, if the motivation is strong enough. Sandy doesn’t see himself as either a moral or legal judge – he is a cog in the legal system, his belief in which has perhaps been the greatest passion in his long life.
I read this one months ago, round about the time that the rich nations were deciding on the safety of the Covid vaccines, and the news was full of stories about our various regulatory bodies and when they would get their act together to approve these and other promised life-saving treatments. There were also stories about Big Pharma’s share prices rocketing up and down with every rumour as to the success or otherwise of their version of a vaccine. At the same time as the book was giving me a detailed picture of the stages any new drug has to go through before it can be approved, the real world was confirming an issue raised in the book – that when rumour gets out of a life-saving treatment for a deadly disease the pressure to approve it becomes immense, almost unstoppable. And Turow shows that when companies stand to make or lose billions depending on whether their drug is approved, the temptation to hide negative reports or manipulate the statistics can be overwhelming. He also raises the question of risk – if a thousand people have their lives extended and improved by a drug, how much weight should be given to the hundred who may be killed by it earlier than they would have died anyway? And if the disease in question is terminal, does that change the balance? If a lawsuit means that the drug is withdrawn and the thousand who would have lived die as a result, is that justice? Questions that all seemed very relevant as reports began to come in about Covid vaccines causing blood clots in a tiny number of people, and entire nations stopping their vaccination programmes as a result.
Although this could certainly be read as a stand-alone novel, it gains from the emotional attachment long-term readers will have developed for Sandy over the years. We are seeing him now in his old age and for those of us who have grown to know him over the years, it’s a nostalgic and occasionally moving experience. He is failing physically, taking the very drug that the case is about to treat his own cancer. Although his mind is still as brilliant as ever, he is slower now, not as able to handle sudden developments on the spur of the moment, and increasingly reliant on his daughter’s support in the courtroom. He too is in nostalgic mood as the end of his career approaches, thinking back and assessing how his devotion to the law may have led him sometimes to fall down on the job of being a husband and father.
A wonderful finale to what has been a superb series. This may be the last we see of Sandy Stern but I sincerely hope that Turow will continue to give us his thoughtful and beautifully written novels for many years yet.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Mantle Pan Macmillan via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Lawyer Sandy Stern is old now and beginning to fail both physically and mentally, but when Kiril Pafko finds himself in trouble, Sandy agrees to defend him. Sandy’s daughter and legal partner, Marta, has decided to retire and Sandy recognises that he won’t be able to continue without her, so this will be his last case. Marta agrees to stay on till the case is over, and Sandy’s granddaughter, Pinky, is also helping out, both with the casework and as a kind of personal assistant to her ageing grandfather. As the case slowly unfolds, Sandy finds himself reflecting on his long career in the law. Having been diagnosed with cancer, Sandy is also facing his own mortality and finds himself thinking back to the people who have been important in his life – his family and friends. Kiril is one of those friends, a brilliant Nobel prizewinner, who has developed a drug that combats cancer with spectacular results. Too spectacular – Kiril is on trial for suppressing negative studies into the side-effects of the drug, and for the murder of patients who, the prosecution claims, had their lives shortened by taking it. Kiril is also accused of having made a fortune by selling shares in the drug just before the negative studies became public. Although for Sandy the main aim is to have Kiril legally acquitted, Kiril is just as concerned about the damage to his reputation in the scientific community, and Sandy finds that their differing objectives mean that his client oftens impedes his attempts to argue the case on legal grounds.
Sandy Stern first appeared in Presumed Innocent in 1987 and I, along with millions of others, have followed his career ever since. Turow has used him over the series to present a thoughtful and realistic picture of how the law works in the US, slowly and not always achieving true justice, but an essential part of the democratic system of ensuring the rights of the individual. Stern’s cases are usually set among the rich and powerful, and Turow clearly shows that justice depends as much on the quality of lawyer a defendant can afford as on the rights and wrongs of the case. The books are always billed as legal thrillers which I think does them an injustice. To me, these long ago crossed the line into literary fiction – they are far more about the human condition in all its frailties and strengths than about exciting courtroom drama, and the writing is of the highest quality. Calling them thrillers I’m sure attracts readers who are disappointed by the slow pace while putting off readers who would appreciate the deep concentration on character, the mechanics of the law and the society that depends on its judgements.
Turow rarely shows the legal system operating corruptly. In most cases, the judges want to do justice fairly according to the law, and the lawyers want to do the best for their clients, whether prosecuting or defending. Stern is a moral man who cares deeply about acting with integrity, even when it would be easier professionally or personally to cut a corner or two. That doesn’t mean he won’t defend someone who he believes has indeed broken the law; like Atticus Finch, Stern believes that justice only works when every accused person has the right to a defence, guilty or innocent. He also knows that even good people occasionally do wrong, if the motivation is strong enough. Sandy doesn’t see himself as either a moral or legal judge – he is a cog in the legal system, his belief in which has perhaps been the greatest passion in his long life.
I read this one months ago, round about the time that the rich nations were deciding on the safety of the Covid vaccines, and the news was full of stories about our various regulatory bodies and when they would get their act together to approve these and other promised life-saving treatments. There were also stories about Big Pharma’s share prices rocketing up and down with every rumour as to the success or otherwise of their version of a vaccine. At the same time as the book was giving me a detailed picture of the stages any new drug has to go through before it can be approved, the real world was confirming an issue raised in the book – that when rumour gets out of a life-saving treatment for a deadly disease the pressure to approve it becomes immense, almost unstoppable. And Turow shows that when companies stand to make or lose billions depending on whether their drug is approved, the temptation to hide negative reports or manipulate the statistics can be overwhelming. He also raises the question of risk – if a thousand people have their lives extended and improved by a drug, how much weight should be given to the hundred who may be killed by it earlier than they would have died anyway? And if the disease in question is terminal, does that change the balance? If a lawsuit means that the drug is withdrawn and the thousand who would have lived die as a result, is that justice? Questions that all seemed very relevant as reports began to come in about Covid vaccines causing blood clots in a tiny number of people, and entire nations stopping their vaccination programmes as a result.
Although this could certainly be read as a stand-alone novel, it gains from the emotional attachment long-term readers will have developed for Sandy over the years. We are seeing him now in his old age and for those of us who have grown to know him over the years, it’s a nostalgic and occasionally moving experience. He is failing physically, taking the very drug that the case is about to treat his own cancer. Although his mind is still as brilliant as ever, he is slower now, not as able to handle sudden developments on the spur of the moment, and increasingly reliant on his daughter’s support in the courtroom. He too is in nostalgic mood as the end of his career approaches, thinking back and assessing how his devotion to the law may have led him sometimes to fall down on the job of being a husband and father.
A wonderful finale to what has been a superb series. This may be the last we see of Sandy Stern but I sincerely hope that Turow will continue to give us his thoughtful and beautifully written novels for many years yet.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Mantle Pan Macmillan via NetGalley.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
madzflo's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
natalier3's review
4.0
As a huge fan of legal thrillers, I am always looking out for new authors to follow, so I was so excited for this one. I felt it was too long, and should have been condensed more to make it more accessible. I think the case that was chosen was extremely scientific and could prove to be challenging for a lot of people. The side stories of the lawyers was fairly boring to me, but I appreciate if this is part of a series then it is a necessary addition.