Author Scott Turow coming to Atlanta to discuss new book ‘Testimony’

Author Scott Turow will be in Atlanta on May 21 to discuss his new novel, “Testimony.” The case in the book centers on the baffling disappearance, near the end of the Balkans War, of 400 Roma (Gypsies) from their slumlike Bosnian refugee camp. CONTRIBUTED BY JEREMY LAWSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Author Scott Turow will be in Atlanta on May 21 to discuss his new novel, “Testimony.” The case in the book centers on the baffling disappearance, near the end of the Balkans War, of 400 Roma (Gypsies) from their slumlike Bosnian refugee camp. CONTRIBUTED BY JEREMY LAWSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Scott Turow writes with zest and authority about the inner workings of the law when crafting a sophisticated novel. So lawyers come out in droves for his events.

You can bet they can’t resist giving him ideas for another novel.

But usually, says the author-attorney who first hit the big time with “Presumed Innocent” (1986), “those book ideas are about someone’s divorce — the legal intrigue surrounding how they got screwed in their divorce.”

But back in 2000, Turow was on a book tour that took him to Holland. Cynthia P. Schneider, then the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, hosted a reception for him to which she invited many American lawyers working at various criminal tribunals in The Hague.

“You’ve got to write a book about this place,” Turow recalls them whispering to him. “You can’t believe what goes on.”

RELATED: Author Events May 14-20

RELATED: London library makes World War II war crimes searches easier

But first, Turow would produce a few other best-sellers, including “Limitations” (2006), “Innocent” (2010) and “Identical” (2013).

“Testimony” by Scott Turow.

icon to expand image

Now comes “Testimony,” Turow’s 11th legal thriller and 13th book. (“One L,” his 1977 title detailing his first year at Harvard Law School, is called a “bible” for law students.)

More than three years in the works, “Testimony” is a multilayered novel inspired by recent world events. Turow will discuss it with Christian Boone, a public safety reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on Sunday at SCADShow in Midtown.

The story unfolds in the voice of Bill ten Boom, another attorney from Turow’s fictional Kindle County (Chicago/Cook County). Friends call him Boom, although a certain sizzling paramour insists on calling him Bill.

At 50, Boom relocates to The Hague to prosecute a case for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The case centers on the baffling disappearance 11 years prior, near the end of the Balkans War, of 400 Roma (Gypsies) from their slumlike Bosnian refugee camp. Like Turow’s previous legal thrillers, “Testimony” unfolds in highly descriptive prose and is sprinkled with colorful characters.

The author has some things in common with Boom. Both divorced after long marriages (Turow’s was 35 years). Both remain friendly as pie with their exes. Both are former U.S. attorneys who made boatloads of money defending wealthy “big-league cruds,” as Boom refers to them.

At one point, Boom says: “Someday, when I finished bringing international justice to the globe, I was going to figure out the connection between self-image and love.”

“Boom speaks for me on that line,” Turow says. “Do you fall in love with someone who in some aspect is who you’d like to be or who will enhance the way you think about yourself?”

With a title like “Testimony,” one might expect a courtroom drama. But readers are more like flies on Boom’s shoes as he darts between his life and job in the Netherlands, dicey investigative work in Bosnia, and secret meetings in Washington, D.C.

Turow and his second wife of one year, Adriane Glazier, a philanthropic executive in the banking world, had a different title for this book: “A Crime in Any Land.” But Turow’s editor suggested “Testimony,” thinking it more substantial.

The case of 400 refugees allegedly kidnapped and murdered overnight hinges entirely on the testimony of one man, a Roma who claims to have been hiding while watching unknown soldiers round up everyone and transport them to a nearby cave, where they were supposedly buried alive by explosives.

Suspects include the mob, Serb paramilitaries, and American soldiers serving with NATO. Turow keeps readers guessing; he’s quick to remind that this is fiction. “There have never been such allegations against U.S. soldiers.”

But there’s at least one obvious real-life parallel in “Testimony.” The character of Laza Kajevic has much in common with the real Bosnian Serb convicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic. “Kajevic and Karadzic, now there’s a mouthful,” says Turow. He spends a lot of time coming up with characters’ names.

Along with the ICC focus, Turow wove in another subject that has “long fascinated” him: Gypsies.

Some 40 years ago, he was visiting a dying relative in a Chicago hospital, amid “dozens and dozens of (local) gypsies hanging around because their gypsy king was also a patient. They were driving the hospital staff crazy. Things like watches and cuff links kept disappearing.”

“I was like, what gives with these people?” Turow recalls.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Turow doesn’t plot in an intricate way. His writing method is more “willy-nilly. It’s anything I’m interested in that day. If I’m reading about Bosnia or Holland or the international court, I just write and a lot of different ideas come together.”

There are some intense “danger” scenes in “Testimony.” Does Turow’s pulse race when he’s writing those?

“Those scenes tend to write themselves in the sense that I’m so submerged in what’s happening. Part of me is completely there and I’m sort of transcribing my own experience. Those are great days, when I get up in the morning and know I’m about to work on a big scene.”


EVENT PREVIEW

“Testimony” by Scott Turow (Grand Central Publishing, 483 pages, $28)

Turow in Conversation with Christian Boone of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

7 p.m. May 21. $30 per person, includes book; $40 for two, includes one book. A Cappella Books at SCADShow Theater, 173 14th St., Atlanta. 404-681-5128, www.acappellabooks.com/pages/events/129/scott-turow-testimony.

Turow will sign copies of “Testimony” at the event. Those who can’t attend may still order an autographed book. Additional copies of “Testimony” sold on site.