''Testimony'', published in 2017, is a novel by

Scott Turow Scott Frederick Turow (born April 12, 1949) is an American author and lawyer. Turow has written 13 fiction and three nonfiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies. Turow’s novel ...

which details ex-

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...

for

Kindle County Scott Frederick Turow (born April 12, 1949) is an American author and lawyer. Turow has written 13 fiction and three nonfiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies. Turow’s novel ...

Bill ten Boom's first case on the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals ...

(ICC); ten Boom investigates the overnight disappearance and suspected massacre of an entire refugee village of more than 400

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sig ...

in the unsettled political atmosphere following the Bosnian war.

Synopsis

Roma refugees had settled in a makeshift village named Barupra in Bosnia, on the outskirts of an abandoned coal mine. The novel opens in March 2015 with the testimony of Ferko Rincic, sole survivor of the massacre, before the ICC. Rincic testifies that

Chetniks The Chetniks ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Четници, Četnici, ; sl, Četniki), formally the Chetnik Detachments of the Yugoslav Army, and also the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland and the Ravna Gora Movement, was a Yugoslav royalist and Serbian nationa ...

had come on the night of April 27, 2004, forcing the Roma onto trucks at gunpoint while he was hiding in an outhouse; according to Rincic, the evacuated Roma were then gathered into an old coal excavation and explosive charges were detonated, burying the entire village within. In January 2015, Bill ten Boom decided to retire from his lucrative private practice and accept a position with the ICC at the request of his colleague from law school, Roger Clewey. In retrospect, ten Boom sees it as the last step in divorcing his life and career from the fictional Kindle County; the majority of the story is set in European locations including

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

and

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...

. Because the Roma had tipped American forces to the location of Laza Kajevic, a wanted war criminal, just prior to the massacre, one potential motive for the crime would have been retaliation for the unsuccessful capture attempt. However, Rincic's testimony, which included a detail that the Chetniks spoke Bosnian with a foreign accent, pointed towards the potential involvement of nearby American troops. The sensitive political situation and the United States' withdrawal from the ICC (under the

American Service-Members' Protection Act The American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA, Title 2 of ), known informally as the Hague Invasion Act, is a United States federal law which aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the ...

) meant that an investigation led by an American prosecutor would be acceptable, leading to the selection of ten Boom. The remainder of the novel details the legal maneuvering in the ICC, forensic investigation by ten Boom and his chief investigator, an ex-Belgian police officer named Goos, and ten Boom's personal life over the next few months.

Reception

Reviewing for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'',

Steven Poole Steven Poole (born 1972) is a British author and journalist. He particularly concerns himself with the abuse of language and has written two books on the subject: ''Unspeak'' (2006) and ''Who Touched Base In My Thought Shower?'' (2013). Biograph ...

wrote "the book ... is expertly handled. ..Turow has not lost his gift for marshalling huge amounts of information and orchestrating its careful release to the reader." ''

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' described ten Boom as "a too-familiar, not very fascinating character oing through a male midlife crisisto carry the tale" but stated the novel was worth its "complicated, trenchant, and pertinent finish."

References

External links

* * {{Kindle County Kindle County 2017 American novels Novels by Scott Turow Legal thriller novels Grand Central Publishing books