Scott Turow begins his latest book with a rather unoriginal set- up: Father dies, and son, rummaging through his effects comes across a letter from an old girlfriend containing shocking information about father's past during World War II. But once we get past this bland conceit, this flawed yet moving story of love and war steadily builds momentum, at least until a startling revelation near the end renders the final pages gratuitously superfluous.
      Stewart Dubinsky, a newly retired newspaper reporter (and recurring character from Turow's earlier work) recently divorced and at odds, plans to write a book about his father, David, a lawyer who'd served in Europe during W.W.II. Much of David's wartime service has been a mystery to Stewart and when he stumbles upon a reference to his father's having been court marshalled at the end of the war, he becomes determined to uncover the truth.
      Stewart's quest for information leads him an elderly attorney who represented David during his trial and reveals the existence of a manuscript -- a memoir of sorts -- David had written while briefly incarcerated. (It's no spoiler to note David's conviction, for apparently allowing a prisoner he was responsible for to escape custody- - is unexpectedly reversed, and he was in many ways simply caught in a struggle between an Army commander and the newly formed OSS.) The majority of the book consists of David's own narrative, with Stewart adding occasional embellishment as needed to keep the story rolling.
      Sent to occupied France as an attorney with Patton's Third Army, David is assigned to arrest a freewheeling OSS agent, Robert Martin, whom the authorities claim has overstepped his boundaries. David becomes enamored with Martin for his ability to conduct raids on German trains, blow up bridges and generally cause mayhem for the enemy. Even more compelling to David is Martin's constant companion - and we assume, lover -- a mysterious and desirable woman named Gita. Upon meeting her, David reflects, "She was narrow as a deer, and in that fashion, pleasingly formed, but...I had decided it would be a stretch to call her beautiful...But she had what the Hollywood tattlers liked to call "it," an undefined magnetism which began with a defiant confidence about herself, palpable even across the room."
      We follow David through the rigors and horror of the last year of the war -- seen through his gradually hardened, combat-steeled eyes, and Turow makes sure we understand the sacrifice and service of the soldiers. After unexpectedly leading troops in a causality-ridden battle, David must come to terms with his current existence: war was "Not life-essential, as I'd somehow believed, but a zone of chaos between living and dying."
      Beneath all the glorious, bloody, heartbreaking stories of wartime heroics and human frailties, beneath David's love-hate, friend-adversary relationship with Martin, the heart of the book is a deeply felt and admirably portrayed love triangle between Gita, Martin and David. Here is where Turow makes his most pointed and incisive commentary on what it means to be human: whether in war or peace, ultimately we all seek that ever elusive, unique italicize here connection end italics here to someone, and while manifestations of that connection are as varied as the people who seek it, it all comes down to love in the end.