Turow to sign books on Tuesday in Madison

May 28, 2017 12:01 am • Last Updated: May 28, 2017 12:05 am

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Scott Turow (Jeremy Lawson photography)

Bestselling novelist takes on Bosnian war crimes in new book

Over the course of several bestselling legal thrillers, author Scott Turow has introduced readers to the dynamics and nuances of fictional Kindle County in the American Midwest. It's the setting for such books as "Presumed Innocent," "The Burden of Proof" and "Identical," along with iconic and oft-recurring characters like Rusty Sabich, Sandy Stern, Sonia Klonsky and George Mason. In fact, for Turow's millions of fans who don't actually live in Illinois, Kindle County is probably a more tangible concept than Chicago — the city on which Kindle County is based.

Find your passport, though, because with "Testimony," Turow's latest novel, you're gonna need it.

Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian war and interethnic violence that resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats, "Testimony" is a contemporary story centered around the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. It's there that Bill ten Boom — known as Boom — a successful 54-year-old Kindle County attorney, lands after leaving his wife, job and home in a flurry of restless and angst-fueled midlife decisions. Boom accepts a job with the I.C.C. to prosecute a long-dormant and unsolved case from the Bosnian conflict wherein several hundred Roma (or Gypsy) men, women and children were rounded up in the dead of night, transported to a large cave and, based on the testimony of the only survivor, buried alive.

Possible perpetrators include Laza Kejovic, the genocidal Bosnian Serb leader based on real-life Radovan Karadzic, who was convicted last year of war crimes and crimes against humanity; organized crime gangs dealing in arms and human trafficking; and, frighteningly enough, American peace-keeping forces acting on behalf of the U.S. Government.

Along with Boom, Turow spins out some fantastic support characters including barrister, Roma advocate and femme fatale (or is she?) Esma Czarni; Layton Merriwell, the disgraced general formerly in charge of NATO forces in Bosnia; and "Goos," the ex-Belgian policeman who serves as Boom's I.C.C. investigator.

"Testimony" is a structurally complex story in which Turow does a fine job of explaining the incredibly complex and tragic circumstances of the Bosnian conflict while, at the same time, crafting a dizzying who-, why- and howdunnit.

On Tuesday, Turow will discuss and sign copies of "Testimony" at the Madison Beach Hotel in Madison. The event benefits the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, Inc., and Alexis Smith, the organization's president, will moderate.

Recently, Turow answered a few questions about "Testimony."

Q. A lot of writers might start writing a novel based on a one character or a specific scene or maybe just a just a rough idea worth exploring. You've got so much intricate history and so many pinballing plot points, though, that I suspect "Testimony" was minutely plotted.

A. That's a very reasonable suspicion. It just doesn't happen to be true. I actually wander around with a lot of different ideas and sort of work on them and write a bit and then eventually kind of concatenate it all. Part of the fun of the complexities of the plot involves doing a lot of writing that I like and then figuring out how to put it all together.

Q. Kindle County is a place you know really well — and not just because you invented it. To paraphrase the old tagline, there are countless stories in the city. So I wonder: why now did you decide to explore something as hydra-headed as the Bosnian war?

A. I have to admit I kind of backed into Bosnia. I was in The Hague 17 years ago, and the ambassador was nice enough to have a reception for me. There were a lot of lawyers there talking about the Yugoslav Tribunal, and I was fascinated. I thought, "I've gotta write about this." Plus, I'd always been curious about the Rolma and wanted to understand that culture This is a group of people that has always been victims of war crimes since they wandered out of Egypt in the 9th century. As an American, to address all of these issues, writing about the I.C.C. would make the most sense. And once I started studying all of it, I was embarrassed by how much had gone on that I wasn't aware of.

Q. In that spirit, I can't imagine how much research you must've done to write "Testimony." Did the background work ever threaten to overwhelm you?

A. No, because I wasn't smart enough to not keep going. If I'd known how much I was going to have to learn, I might not have finished. I knew nothing about the I.C.C. and arrogantly thought I knew enough about law to pull it off. I had to learn a whole new court. And to do all of that, I had to literally go there and absorb the milieu of the city, though of course that was pleasant. I also had to go to Bosnia and understand this unbelievably complex situation.

Q. A major plot issue in the book is that Boom only found out as an adult that he is actually Jewish — that his father and mother were the only ones in a large family that escaped Europe before the Holocaust. I think this adds an important element to Boom's character.

A. I'm lucky enough to have (literary) agents all over the world. One told me that she was 30 when she found out her parents were rescued from the Holocaust — and she was absolutely devastated for many reasons. I think this definitely plays into the book because maybe Boom doesn't wholly understand the motivation for wanting to become a war crimes prosecutor.

Q. You were writing about atrocities rooted in a historic event that took place 13 years ago. But these are particularly tense times in the world right now, and reading "Testimony" now seems more resonant than maybe it would have three years ago. Does that make any sense?

A. Of course it makes sense. A lot of these are really repetitive problems. Look at Syria, for example. These situations scream out for a certainty that there will be an attempt to bring to justice the people responsible on all sides for this extraordinary mayhem. That's why an institution like the I.C.C., despite its many flaws, has to exist. You get a choice between centuries-old hatreds that plague the Bosnian state — and perhaps justice. If you take a historical view of this, you can see how important the I.C.C. could be in reconciliation in an individual nation and cutting short generations of hatred in intractable conflicts.

Q. You've got an established roster of amazing characters, many of whom occasionally recur throughout your work. I'm fascinated by the idea in fiction that a character can take on a life of his or her own during the writing process and perhaps even change the course of a novel. Can that really happen?

A. The answer is yes. There's a piece of me that thinks it's an unbelievably romantic view of the writing process. But the reality is that for those of us who write fiction or video games or screenplays, it's an adult way to play with the imaginary friends you had when you were 6. Characters are often driven to do things from your unconsciousness, stuff you're not aware of — and I haven't written the book yet where that hasn't happened. It was certainly true with "Testimony." That's part of the magic of the process. I went in thinking I knew a lot about Boom, but there are certainly other paths of discovery.