Scott Turow: The Last Trial, 9781529039085, Mantle/Pan Macmillian, Hardback, EBook available

I have considered Scott Turow to be one of the finest legal thriller writers ever since reading his masterpiece “Presumed Innocent” which stared Sandy Stern for the first time and left me completely hooked.  I feel the same way about  his latest novel, “The Last Trial”,  where Sandy Stern, now at age 85, argues his final case together with his daughter Marta, his partner now for many years in the legal firm Stern & Stern. 

The defendant is his lifelong friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a Nobel Prize winner of Medicine, researcher and inventor of a ground breaking cancer drug.  He has been charged and accused of several crimes: altering medical data to get the FDA’s approval for the cancer medication, insider trading after selling stocks having received a warning of a negative Wall Street Journal investigation and murder as some patients who were part of his cancer drug study died suddenly of possible allergic reactions as a consequence of a cover up.  Reluctantly and feeling  in frail health himself after having survived several forms of cancer he agrees to defend his old friend promising Marta this will be his last case.

What follows is a tour de force in search of the truth through every step of the trial which is so brilliantly argued and composed you feel like you are a real life spectator in the court room unsure which trap door or argument will open next. It is not only one of the best legal thrillers I have ever read but the strength of this novel lies in its detailed portrayal of all the characters emotions and motives providing deep and philosophical insights into the dark and fragile side of human nature, the might friendships and family hold over all of our lives. I have no idea how brilliantly Scott Turow's legal mind must be working to arrive at such a complex storyline. 

This masterful book held my absolute attention for all its 465 pages; and I do love the last sentence, 5 stars from me!