Ordinary Heroes [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Scott Turow (Author), Edward Herrmann (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

Stewart Dubinsky knew his father had served in World War II. And he'd been told how David Dubin (as his father had Americanized the name that Stewart later reclaimed) had rescued Stewart's mother from the horror of the Balingen concentration camp. But when he discovers, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancée, and learns of his father's court-martial and imprisonment, he is plunged into the mystery of his family's secret history and driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man who'd always refused to talk about his war.

As he pieces together his father's past through military archives, letters, and, finally, notes from a memoir his father wrote while in prison, secretly preserved by the officer who defended him, Stewart starts to assemble a dramatic and baffling chain of events. He learns how Dubin, a JAG lawyer attached to Patton's Third Army and desperate for combat experience, got more than he bargained for when he was ordered to arrest Robert Martin, a wayward OSS officer who, despite his spectacular bravery with the French Resistance, appeared to be acting on orders other than his commanders'. In pursuit of Martin, Dubin and his sergeant are parachuted into Bastogne just as the Battle of the Bulge reaches its apex. Pressed into the leadership of a desperately depleted rifle company, the men are forced to abandon their quest for Martin and his fiery, maddeningly elusive comrade, Gita, as they fight for their lives through carnage and chaos, the likes of which Dubin could never have imagined.

In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart gains a closer understanding of his past, of his father's character, and of the brutal nature of war itself.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. When retired newspaperman Stewart Dubinsky (last seen in 1987's Presumed Innocent) discovers letters his deceased father wrote during his tour of duty in WWII, a host of family secrets come to light. In Turow's ambitious, fascinating page-turner, a "ferocious curiosity" compels the divorced Dubinsky to study his "remote, circumspect" father's papers, which include love letters written to a fiancée the family had never heard of, and a lengthy manuscript, which his father wrote in prison and which includes the shocking disclosure of his father's court-martial for assisting in the escape of OSS officer Robert Martin, a suspected spy. The manuscript, hidden from everyone but the attorney defending him, tells of Capt. David Dubin's investigation into Martin's activities and of both men's entanglements with fierce, secretive comrade Gita Lodz. From optimistic soldier to disenchanted veteran, Dubin—who, via the manuscript, becomes the book's de facto narrator—describes the years of violence he endured and of a love triangle that exacted a heavy emotional toll. Dubinsky's investigations prove revelatory at first, and life-altering at last. Turow makes the leap from courtroom to battlefield effortlessly. (Nov. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Retired reporter Stewart Dubinsky last made an appearance in Presumed Innocent (1987). Here, the self-lacerating Dubinsky delves deep into his family’s wartime history—one loosely based on Turow’s father’s experiences. For critics, the question is whether a legal-thriller writer can succeed in another genre—and the answers vary. Out of the courtroom, Turow remains an effective storyteller whose characters (Gita in particular) and details of war create immediacy and intrigue. However, his usual spark seems to be missing. A few critics faulted the novel for introducing too much history, too many mysteries, and too many themes—from war to love to family secrets. In the end, the personal dramas that characterize Turow’s best works carry this story-within-a-story, too.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Unabridged edition (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739322591
• ISBN-13: 978-0739322598
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( T ) > Turow, Scott
  • #96 in Books > Books on CD > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting Departure for Scott Turow, November 8, 2005

By 

Ronald H. Clark (WASHINGTON, DC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ordinary Heroes: A Novel (Hardcover)

Scott Turow has produced a masterful collection of books-- everything from "One L" about his first year at Harvard Law, to an extremely perceptive volume on the death penalty, to six very well received novels. Some credit him with the invention of the so-called "legal thriller," an art form in any regard that he has developed to a fine level. So, this novel -- which is fundamentally a novel about World War II combat -- is somewhat of a departure. While I did not find it to be vintage Turow, it is still quite a solid yarn.

This book is not a "page turner," and in fact at points it seems to drag a bit. Things do pick up toward the end, however. The story jumps back and forth between World War II and the present--but this is handled well. Turow adopts the device of the central character's father speaking through a long memorandum he had written at the end of the war to educate the lawyer defending him during a court martial. But I am not sure this approach works as well as it might. Turow's impeccable feel for the dialogue of lawyers and judges does not wholly transfer to this war story--at times, one can hardly imagine that GI's under fire or some of the foreign characters would speak with such vocabulary ("raddled") and sentence structure. Turow has done his research on the "Battle of the Bulge" and historically the novel is about as accurate as a work of fiction can be. The central Rod Serling like surprise plot device is pretty transparent midway in the book, but still brings things to a fascinating conclusion.

Be assured, I do not criticize Turow for striking out in new directions as a novelist. John Grisham has done this with success, and Turow was always a better novelist than Grisham to begin with. So what we have is a good, solid novel that is a tad below his legal fiction, but still represents a fine piece of fiction writing by one of its acknowledged masters.

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "No Bottom to Even the Darkest Ocean", November 13, 2005

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ordinary Heroes: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is not the classic page-turner of nonstop action, cliffhangers, and suspense. But it is classic Scott Turow: intelligent, intricately plotted, and superbly crafted, adding up to an extraordinary mystery that also can't be put down.

Turow, a practicing lawyer best known for his legal drama, wraps the plot only loosely around the law as he treads new ground with this original novel of World War II. Stewart Dubinsky, a middle-aged reporter, knew is father served in Europe during WWII, but the War was a subject off-limits in the Dubinski household. Upon is father's death, Dubinski discovers that his father had been court-martialed and imprisoned, and sets out to find the decades-old answers. What follows is a tale that is anything but ordinary; a deeply emotional and painfully realistic drama of the horrors of war in the European theater.

It is early 1944, and Dubinsky's father, David Dubin, is a young lawyer assigned to the US Army's JAG Corps headquartered in Nancy, France, recently re-occupied by the Allies. He is assigned to investigate the alleged insubordination of Robert Martin, a Major in the CIA-forerunner OSS. Martin is a shadowy figure; a living legend of unparalleled heroism and bravery behind Nazi lines, but perhaps also a spy the loosely allied Soviets. Turow, ever the perfectionist, can be counted on for a richly developed cast of characters. And rarely has there been a character more interesting than the enigmatic Gita Lodz, a Polish immigrant turned French resistance commando, a gritty and war-hardened warrior with as much similarity to Laura Croft as LeCarre's George Smiley has to James Bond. She is also the inseparable companion of Martin, setting up the first two legs of the triangle that Dubin not surprisingly completes. In pursuing Martin - and Gita - through northern Europe, the lawyer Dubin finds himself pressed into service as a front-line infantry officer to replenish Allied troops decimated by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge. Told from foxhole-level perspective, Turow paints a horrific picture of the War as brutally vivid and gory as "Saving Private Ryan", while capturing the passion and emotion of Leon Uris' best works. As much a character study as it is a mystery, Turow takes us on his own campaign culminating in a morbidly riveting portrayal of a Nazi concentration camp and ending in an unexpected twist to Major Robert Martin's story.

It is typically three years between Scott Turow's novels, presumably due to the painstaking research he conducts. Delivered with the historical authority and authenticity usually associated with Alan Furst, Turow applies his trademarked plots, clever twists, and human struggles, adding up to a moving and educational drama that you'll likely be recommending to your friends. Well done, Mr. Turow!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I could give this amazing novel TEN stars, November 14, 2005

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Ordinary Heroes: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm always a little amazed when people lump together Turow and Grisham as writers of "legal thrillers." Grisham turns out superficial, heavily cinematic potboilers. Turow constructs careful, literate, precisely plotted novels of substance. But having said that, I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. It is, indeed, a "thriller," and the plotline deals with the law, but the setting is the European Theater in World War II, not the present in Kindle County (which always has felt, to me, a lot like Cook County). Captain David Dubin is a young Jewish lawyer who goes through infantry officer training in early 1944 but is then assigned to JAG in France a few months after D-Day. He and a handful of others like him spend alternating days either prosecuting or defending GIs accused of ordinary crimes, from theft to rape and murder. It's hard, rather boring work and David yearns to take a more direct part in the war. Then his commander sends him out to locate and arrest Maj. Robert Martin, a swashbuskling OSS officer who has been ignoring orders he didn't agree with. And with Martin is Gita Lodz, a strong-willed Polish gamine who takes over David's heart and soul. Martin, of course, has no intention of giving himself up to the military authorities and David's quest to carry out his orders takes him on a harrowing, appalling journey into the depths of war. He's forced by circumstances to take command of a rifle company, to send men to their deaths. His principles are challenged again and again, until he is no longer the earnest young officer who left a girl behind to fight for the American Way.

And throughout the book, Turow dares you not to care about Dubin, the tormented Sgt. Bidwell, Gen. Teedle, and especially Gita, who does what she has to do. And you'll certainly care about Robert Martin. I was born during the period when Dubin is trying to keep his company together during the Siege of Bastogne, and I've read a good deal about it over the years, but Dubin's first-person narrative is the most gripping, horrifying, affecting account of the Bulge I have ever read, fiction or nonfiction. I will be very, very surprised if this book, which is Turow's best yet, doesn't earn him a Pulitzer or a National Book Award, or both.