Der Befehl (gekürzte Fassung)

Stewart Dubinsky's reads his father's written account of the events during WWII that led him into exciting adventures and also got him court-martialed. The father's story is compelling but Turow unnecessarily interrupts it with flash forwards to the present that accomplish nothing. Contains extensive detail about military equipment and maneuvers.

After his father dies, Stewart Dubinsky is asked by his mother to clear out his father's possessions. While doing so, he discovers a letter from an ex fiancee and military documents that indicate his father was court-martialed at the end of WW II. His mother won't explain the documents so Stewart sets off on quest to learn what happened.He discovers his father was a JAG lawyer who ended up actually leading fighting men during the Battle of the Bulge while searching for the illusive OSS officer, Major Robert Martin. There is also a mystery Polish woman with whom his father has an affair.The novel moves quickly and is impossible to put down once you start to read it. This is my first Turow and apparently this novel breaks away from his usual courtroom stories. I will have to look up one of those to compare. This was an amazing read.

This "story within a story" involves the search by Stewart Dubinsky , a journalist, for information about his father, David Dubin, who has just died. He discovers that his father had received a court martial towards the end of World War II and sentenced to five years in Leavenworth - something that didn't quite fit in with his father's war medals.Stewart's search takes him on a long trek, trying to access military records that are now still highly classified. He does manage to gain access, but only to redacted documents - until he contacts the man who had been his father's attorney. The attorney has a lengthy document he had asked David to write before his trial, as a way of getting some sense of what David had been through - because David, a lawyer and Assistant Judge Advocate, refuses to explain why he wants to plead guilty to the charges brought against him (releasing a prisoner accused of disobeying orders, and possibly treason).Stewart reads the "journal" left by his father, which recounts David's attempts to arrest Richard Martin, a man who is something of a rogue and who claims to be an OSS officer on assignment. David is assigned by Martin's commanding officer - General Teedle - to find Martin, stop him, and bring him in for trial. In the course of this, David encounters the horrors of war at the very front lines of the final Allied advance that would ultimately defeat the Nazis.I am not one for war stories, but Turow produces a book that is absolutely astonishing. The pace of the book is excellent, the narrative effectively descriptive, the ultimate story being told compelling. Surprises about, as Stewart finds that his mother refuses to talk about David's experiences in the War, even though David had rescued her from a concentration camp (Dubin and Stewart's mother are Jewish). Stewart's sister refuses to support his efforts to uncover their father's past.A tightly-woven story that will satisfy readers completely - rich characters, profound insights, compelling plot. A must-read.

A World War 11 mystery about a son's search for his father's service records. ienjoyed the premise of this book but found it very slow reading.

Over the Years Turow has mastered even more the art of telling stories, not law thrilles but real people stories. The law is still there as a guide, but it is not the main character.
Ordinary Heroes is in the line of The Laws of Our Fathers, but set during WWII with a very good rendition of the historical and human situation of the characters.

This is going to be one of my favorite books of the year. A really excellent character driven story set in the present (2003-4) and during 1944-45 in World War II. There are a couple of mysteries in here as well as a legal thriller (Turow's specialty). I became quite attached to several of the characters which I regard as a sure sign of good writing. The story itself feels like a true one even though it is apparently entirely fictitious. Parts of the story are set within larger real events with WWII (anyone who watched Band of Brothers will immediately recognize the winter battles around Bastogne in December 1944 as part of the Battle of the Bulge). This is much more than war fiction however. The novel is a little slow to start and has a rather slow pace for the beginning, but that is how we get to know the characters so well and become immersed in the stories. When the story kicks into high gear it is something of an emotional roller coaster with twists and turns. Some deaths are hard to take.words of caution: The graphic gore level gets pretty high during the Christmas battle sequence at Bastogne and with some scenes beyond. I was so immersed in the story that it felt appropriate to what was happening, but it might upset some readers. There is a bit of a romance within the novel - an unconventional one - but love and lust in the time of war is nothing new. Just ask Hemingway. Personally I enjoy a bit of romance in stories when it is handled well. Recommended

During WWII a young and naive Jewish military lawyer, David Dubin, is tasked with investigating Robert Martin for non-compliance of orders. On meeting Martin, Dubin is impressed by Martin's charm, wit and courage, and agrees to help him and his team carry out a mission against the Nazis. The team includes Gita Lodz, a bright and energetic woman Martin rescused on a previous mission. On returning to his superiors Dubin believes receipts Gita provided will prove that Martin did not comply with orders because he had higher-ranking orders, and that will end this task. Due to complex military law and strong personalities, Dubin is asked again to find Martin but this time the search is more difficult, and Dubin is side-tracked into commanding units in companies fighting Nazis camped close by. With little real battle experience, cold weather, and insufficient supplies Dubin loses a number of men to snipers but does his best to bolster and support his unit until re-inforcements and supplies arrive. Ordinary Heroes describes Dubin's ongoing efforts and challenges to find Martin, and decisions he makes in executing his duties. His experiences and feelings in battle, the men he meets, those he loses all mold him into a more mature man with changed perspectives. A strong read about heroes, fathers and sons, courage, loss and love.

This was fun to read. Turow is the King of all legal mysteries/thrillers. Nobody can write as well as he can. This book is a departure from the usual legal thriller--it focuses on David Lubin, a JAG lawyer during World War II. Lubin is ordered to investigate and then arrest OSS spy Robert Martin. My only complaint about this book is that it gets bogged down with military details--I was unfamiliar with the towns mentioned, the military jargon, and the historical significance of each battle that takes place. But at the same time, the description of what it was like being in the middle of a hellish war was pretty vivid. I liked the surprise twist at the end of the book. Overall, this is not Turow's best work but well worth reading.

Finished in early February 2006, immediately prior to Kaminsky book. This is more serious, but not necessarily better than the latter. Enjoyable.

Turow tells this WWII story with two first-person narrators, a technique which I found to be imaginative and helpful to the storyline. Not a five-star book, but definitely 4. It kept me interested throughout, and was gripping in the last third. Turow delivered stomach-clenching descriptions of battle and characters that were intriguing, unpredictable, and very human.

Turow takes us in a new direction with the story of a man who's searching through the letters of his recently deceased father and finds that his family history is not what he thought it was. Intriguing, and the war descriptions are well done.Not a delightful book, but a thoughtful one.

I really enjoyed this story. It showed the flaws and strengths in the characters both in peace and in war. I connected with them and it had me engrosed all the way.

I'm feeling dumb!!! I listened to this in 2006 and didn't remember it at all---this time I REALLY liked it---why did I only give it four stars before? Just incredible, from the descriptions to the story. What I especially liked was the interview with Turow at the end---answering questions about the influence of his father as well as personal comments.The reader, Edward Herrmann is terrific. Definitely worth it, even if it had to be for the second time.

As historic fiction about World War II, the story succeeds. The battles were real and the descriptions authentic. They put the reader in the midst of the danger and the carnage. The arrogance of the commanding officers is exposed as are the petty prejudices of the soldiers as well as their fear of combat and death.Some of the information is based on facts and can be documented; some is made up out of whole cloth. There was a race to build a weapon that could split the atom and cause a level of destruction no could ever imagine. There were concentration camps committing crimes against humanity, and atrocities beyond belief were conducted there. There were resistance fighters, spies, a working underground army in France, and an intelligence agency called the O.S.S, the precursor to the CIA. There were insubordinate soldiers, traitors and deserters. There was no Gita Lodz or Robert Martin.After the death of his father, David Dubin, Stuart Dubinsky, a retired journalist and frustrated author, discovers information about him that he had never known. Their relationship had not been as close as it should have been, and it was now too late to reconcile any differences. All he knew for sure was that his father had met his mother when she was in a concentration camp. It was at the end of the war, and they married in 1946. Everything that happened to them before that was in the past, left in silence, everything else was the future that they lived.Reading through the letters of his father from a previously unknown former girlfriend, Grace Morton, he discovers that his father had another life he never knew about. He had been engaged before he married his mother, he had been court-martialed at the war’s end and sentenced to prison, but the sentence was eventually overturned. He had no idea about the court-martial or its dismissal. He was astonished and upon learning the name of the lawyer who defended his father, he sets out to find him. He had little hope since so much time had passed, but when he found him in an assisted living facility, deep into his 90’s, he was surprised to find a weakened frail man with a mind sharp as a tack and a memory like a steel trap. However, the lawyer refused to tell him the whole story, because of attorney client privilege.Against the wishes of his mother and his siblings, he doggedly decides to try to ferret out the secrets his father had so desperately sought to prevent his family from discovering and to write a book about the events. Through a manuscript written by his father, interviews with the lawyer and letters, he slowly finds out more about his father’s time in the service. As a lawyer, he was a member of the judicial branch of the army. He had been both a JAG officer and an infantry soldier. The General he was assigned to, ordered him to investigate a Robert Martin, accused of insubordination, impersonating an O.S.S officer, disobeying orders and eventually of being a Soviet spy. Through Martin, he met Gita Lodz, a resistance fighter; both are fictional characters. There are other names, however, in the story which will be recognized as famous generals and scientists.Will Stuart write David’s story and expose his father’s hidden background, perhaps bringing unnecessary shame upon his family, or will he let sleeping dogs lie? In a sense this book is not only a soldier’s story, it is also a condemnation of war, of the military command, the command that sent innocent men to die with abandon, that sent them on suicide missions while they sat in relative safety, the command that put them in situations that were often untenable, making them do things they would not do normally. The racism and anti-Semitism and the homophobia of those times, during WWII is authentic, but some of the military orders seemed to simply be the product of demented minds, arrogant leaders, bent on vengeance or petty quarrels they wanted to settle simply because they could.The mystery unravels a bit too slowly for my taste. The details of the underlying spy story, although exciting, stretched the imagination as did the love story between two unlikely characters. Some of the dialogue is silly and inappropriate, not the language, because foul language is a product of men and war, but the conversations at times, bordered on the insensitive and ridiculous. Otherwise it was an accurate picture of war, the fear, the fighting, the bloodshed and the brutality. Happily, also, the reader of this audiobook did an outstanding job. His voice did not drone, was well modulated, and held my interest at all times.

When retired newspaperman Stewart Dubinsky discovers letters his deceased father wrote during his tour of duty in WWII, family secrets come to light. In Scott Turow's latest page-turner, a curiosity compels the divorced Dubinsky, last seen in the novel Presumed Innocent, to study his father's papers. They include love letters written to a fiancée the family never knew and a manuscript written while his father was in prison, which included the disclosure of his father's court-martial for assisting in the escape of OSS suspected spy.The story is fascinating. Yet it is rendered more interesting by Scott Turow’s use of Faulkner-like techniques. Like the Nobel Prize winner, he shifts the story's narration from one character to another and employs somewhat disorienting disruptions of a chronology. There is a genius behind the technique. As the reader reads on, he or she unravels another piece of this complex story. Each witness or character to the story has his or her version. The more the reader digs, the more likely he or she will emerge with a story that resembles the true event. Like Faulkner, Turow’s narration and characters may appear complex. Yet, his themes are simple. He writes about life's great issues - life and death, good and evil, love and hate, wealth and poverty, individual and family, sanity and insanity, success and failure, heroism and the ordinary. Turow’s characters speak to their ability to transcend their settings and endure their sufferings. They are ordinary people who realize they aspire to a normal life. They bear the blows existence often delivers. They bear them bravely. They emerge pained, yet ennobled.While I hesitate to rank Scott Turow on a par with William Faulkner, I have no such reticence recommending Ordinary People. In my opinion, it is Turow’s best novel to date.No doubt, the reader will race through it to discover how it ends. Yet, the story’s power promises to linger as the reader contemplates the inner drama of war’s corrosive effects on even the most civilized people.

The book opens with Stewart Dubinsky's family handling the affairs after his father's death. Stewart finds a tin of old papers in his father's closet - letters from a fiancé and papers indicating his father faced a court martial. Stewart never knew that his father had a serious relationship other than his mother or that his father had been in the military. When his mother won't talk about his father's service or the fiancé, Stewart, a retired journalist, starts investigating. He finds the lawyer who defended his father against the court martial in a nursing home and lies to get his hands on a memoir his father wrote while under house arrest. The manuscript describes his father's tenure as a military lawyer and how an assignment to question a suspected traitor led to his participation on the front lines of battle. Stewart learns that his parents were more complex than he knew and that everyone has the right to remake themselves into something new and leave their past behind.