I was in college when Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent was published in the 1980s and the image of the paperback cover—a red fingerprint against a black background—is still an indelible memory. Quite simply, the book seemed to be everywhere; it was the quintessential beach read, a legal thriller informed by the mysteries of sex that had real literary merit.
A few years later, I was in law school when the “Presumed Innocent” movie starring Harrison Ford came out in the summer of 1990. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, the film was an excellent adaptation of the novel featuring one of Ford’s strongest performances as Rusty Sabich, the prosecutor accused of murder. (Neither Turow nor Sabich was well served by last year’s Apple TV+ series; don’t let it keep you away from the novel or the movie.)
One of the pleasures of growing older in the law is keeping up with Turow’s novels and characters. He’s a marvelous writer, with a sharp eye for detail, perceptive understanding of human psychology, and careful attention to the intricacies of plot. Best of all, Turow is superb in writing about the legal system, especially the way in which we rely on trials to determine, approximately, the truth and render judgment. Turow follows the rules of evidence and procedure, and this fidelity to the law enhances the stories he tells.
By now, Turow has written thirteen legal thrillers. Rusty was the central figure in Presumed Innocent and Innocent, published in 2010. In the latter, he’s a judge who, again, becomes a criminal defendant. Now Turow has brought Rusty, now 77-years old, back in Presumed Guilty. After reading about him as a prosecutor, criminal defendant, and judge, we get to see Rusty as a criminal defense attorney.
It’s not too much of a spoiler to note that this is the only legal role Sabich plays in Innocent. I do not want to give away too much of the plot, so the rest of this review will provide no more than notes on Presumed Guilty in light of Turow’s other legal thrillers. I will start by observing that the novel is very good—not quite Presumed Innocent or Pleading Guilty (1993) but close enough to be well worth your time.
Pleading Guilty is my favorite Turow novel. I credit Mack Malloy, the attorney narrator who has no illusions about his declining status at his law firm, the failures in his personal life, and the limits of his abilities as a former artist. (Ryan Gosling, if you’re willing to put on some weight, your agent should take a meeting about the project.)
Perhaps the most notable difference of Presumed Guilty from Turow’s prior legal thrillers is the setting. We’re not in Kindle County anymore. As Rusty explains, he has decamped from the city—Kindle County essentially is a stand-in for Cook County, which includes Chicago—for Skageon County, a fictionalized upstate, rural Midwestern community.
In Presumed Innocent, politics are entirely local—meaning municipal. One of the many reasons the murder of Rusty’s fellow prosecutor, Carolyn Polhemus, is so distressing is that her death is undermining the re-election prospects of Rusty’s boss, District Attorney Raymond Horgan. Horgan is part of the political machine that runs the city, the only politics that matter. In addition, there’s something raw yet irresistible about the city in Presumed Innocent—it’s both seedy and alluring.
By moving Rusty upstate, Turow is able to turn his eye toward rural America. While Rusty and some others in Skageon County code blue politically, the county is red. Accordingly, the prosecutors with whom Rusty spars are conservative, as are many members of the jury.
The first third of Presumed Guilty sets the stage for the courtroom drama. Most of the rest of the novel is Rusty’s account of the trial. This approach plays to Turow’s greatest strength, his ability to provide a thoughtful, credible account of how the legal system operates during a trial. My only regret is that Sandy Stern, the defense lawyer from the first two Rusty novels, is not at the counsel table.
In Presumed Guilty, Rusty is an excellent defense lawyer even though his only trial experience before the bench came as a prosecutor decades ago. He is knowledgeable, diligent, and comfortable in the courtroom—qualities that serve him well and are consistent with his prior work representing the state in proving its case against the defendant.
Unlike Sandy, however, Rusty is not a magician. Part of Sandy’s appeal in Presumed Innocent is that he is so elegant and understated that he charms us into believing his patient, persistent attack on the prosecution’s case. Sandy is not Perry Mason, maneuvering the trial for a climactic showdown. Instead, through witnesses’ concessions, inferences, and reminders about character, Sandy weaves a tale that calls into question the government’s story and charges.
I’m not the only Sandy Stern fan. Turow is enamored of Sandy, about whom he wrote, “if things are going well with a novel, there is always a character who runs away with the book, someone you barely planned on when you began writing, who ends up forcing themselves into a more prominent role. Long before I finished Presumed [Innocent], I knew I had to give Stern a book of his own, which is how I got to The Burden of Proof, where Stern struggles with the mystery of his wife’s suicide.” It’s nice that Sandy is still alive in Presumed Guilty, but I must note that he doesn’t really figure into the story.
In the prior novels involving Rusty, there was an element of film noir. In Presumed Innocent, Carolyn was a classic “femme fatale” who was adept at manipulating the powerful men with whom she worked. And extramarital sex is profoundly destabilizing in both novels. At the same time, Turow suggests, sexuality is such a mystery that it’s plausible that Rusty would wreck his life for another woman—not just once, but twice.
Presumed Guilty demonstrates that an old dog can learn new tricks, at least if we’re talking about Rusty’s private life. The death of his wife, Barbara, was central to Innocent. When we catch up with Rusty upstate, he is happily engaged to be wed. The only threat to the wedding, it seems, is that Bea, his fiancée, needs him to defend her adopted son, Aaron, after he is charged with murdering his on-again, off-again girlfriend.
Aaron is a young Black man. Rusty, Bea, and Aaron’s girlfriend are white. Race, therefore, is a central part of Presumed Guilty.
Over the course of nearly forty years, Turow has taken Rusty on a journey from urban prosecutor to rural defender and given him a more diverse family that must face the challenge of a murder prosecution. As Turow shows, Rusty is up for the task; in doing so, the author has given us a character who not only has aged but matured as well. We should all be so fortunate.
