The Final Case

Guterson’s (Snow Falling on Cedars) latest is marked by lyrical prose, exquisitely crafted descriptions, and pleasing narration. What it isn’t is a driving legal drama. Ostensibly, the story is about the final case of an octogenarian criminal attorney. The protagonist, Royal, is asked to take a pro bono case defending the wife of a fundamentalist couple accused of torturing to death Abeba, their adopted Ethiopian daughter. The narrator is Royal’s son, an unnamed fiction author. Midway through the trial Royal has a stroke and dies. At that point the novel’s focus shifts from the criminal case to the consequences of Royal’s death for the narrator. George Newbern’s voice is smooth, relaxed, and steady, using various accents where appropriate. The prose is beautiful, albeit sometimes graphic, but there are no highs or lows to the story. Listeners will have a hard time connecting emotionally to any of the characters—not Royal, nor the narrator, nor even the dead child. While the trial does get a resolution, it is almost an afterthought because the two parts of the novel are so disconnected.