Summary and Reviews of Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow

Book Summary

Turow has penned a searing story of World War II. An extraordinary, unforgettable novel, which was inspired by his own father's military experiences.

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 horrors of the Balingen concentration camp. But when, after his father's death, he discovers 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 is driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man who 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 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 Patron's Third Army and eager 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 commander's.

In pursuit of Martin, Dubin and his sergeant had parachuted into Bastogne just as the Battle of the Bulge reached its apex. Pressed into the leadership of a desperately depleted rifle company, the men were forced to abandon their quest for Martin and his fiery, maddeningly elusive comrade, Gita Lodz, as they fought for their lives through the ferocious winter battle that would determine Europe's fate.

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.