Burden of Proof

The unexpected suicide of his wife of 31 years impels Alejandro Stern, the accomplished, self-contained criminal defense lawyer who defended Rusty Sabich in Presumed Innocent , on a Dantean exploration of his psyche. Clara's death comes just after Sandy has learned of a federal grand jury's investigation of Maison Dixon, a successful brokerage house in midwestern Kindle County owned by flamboyant Dixon Hartnell, the husband of Sandy's sister Silvia, and a longtime friend and client. Trying to determine the nature of the government's case, uncovering surprising information about Clara's health and financial dealings, entering into bewildering new relationships with women, Sandy is also forced to reexamine, through the lens of grief, his connection with his three grown children: Marta, a New York lawyer; Peter, a physician in Kindle County; and newly pregnant Kate, whose husband works at Maison Dixon. In a controlled, smoldering tone that flashes occasionally into flame, Turow develops a complex, satisfying plot, steeped in law and finance, that turns perhaps too often on coincidence but remains utterly faithful to its deeply probed characters. Sandy's painful, blindered passage through sorrow and grief to life and passion is a dark, finally affirming account of, in his own summing up, ``the heart-sore arithmetic of human events. Loss and gain.'' 750,000 first printing; major ad/promo. (June)