A Who-Done-It Modeled on Greek Tragedy

I was expecting another courtroom drama, which Turow is famous for, but instead got a complicated who-dun-it which meshed power struggles and politics with family feuds and Greek mythol0gy. As Turow himself admits in his concluding notes, inspiration for the story came from the Gemini myth of Castor and Pollux, twins who shared in each other’s fates and spent half their time in Hades and half on Mount Olympus with the Greek Gods. Knowing that myth before reading the book gives added dimensions to Turow’s novel.

Twenty-five years after the daughter of a powerful and wealthy Greek tycoon was murdered and her boyfriend Cass Gianis is finally released after doing 25 years for that murder, the victim’s brother—now heir to the tycoon’s far-flung business empire—wants answers. He orders his security chief and an 82-year-old PI he has kept on retainer to look into the possible involvement of Cass’ identical twin Paul Gianis, now a state senator and likely victor in the upcoming mayor’s race, in that long-ago murder. There is an abundance of evidence—blood type, finger and foot prints, motive—against Cass, and nothing against Paul, but that won’t stop the vindictive Hal Kronon, whose aggressive ad campaign questioning Paul’s involvement threatens to sink Gianis’ mayoral ambitions.

Security chief Evon Miller  and the long-retired homicide detective-turned-PI Tim Brody team up to follow the leads, drawing on new DNA testing techniques, and soon discover that Cass didn’t commit the murder. But then who did, and why did Cass plead guilty? And so begins a complex Greek tragedy which leaves few unscathed at the end. The “identical twin” theme has almost become cliché in who-dun-its, but Turow gives it a new twist that kept me, at least, guessing nearly til the end.

What gives Identical its special appeal is Turow’s refusal to rely on plot or action alone to hold the reader’s attention. He instead gives us fully-fleshed characters so that we can judge for ourselves who among them are likely to be capable of murder and for what reasons. He weaves a complicated web of relationships within the tight-knit Greek community which both the Gianis and Kronon families are a part.

I will admit that some of the revelations at the end proved a touch too far-fetched to be believable, which took away from my total enjoyment of the novel, but there was enough in here to keep me spell-bound and guessing through most of it.