Book review: Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow

Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow is the third in the Presumed Innocent series which kicked off with its namesake waaaaay back in 1987, followed by Innocent in 2010. I suspect this third installation has something to do with the success of the series on offer this year via AppleTV+. I’ve always thought Turow led the way for other legal procedurals (by the likes of John Grisham, Lisa Scottoline, Steve Martini, Alafair Burke et al) with the original book (not to mention the 1990 movie starring Harrison Ford) positioning courtroom drama and legal thrillers front and centre in print and on the screen in a way we hadn’t seen since Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series which kicked off in print in the 1930s.

Rusty is a retired judge attempting a third act in life with a loving soon-to-be wife, Bea, with whom he shares both a restful home on an idyllic lake in the rural Midwest and a plaintive hope that this marriage will be his best, and his last. But the peace that’s taken Rusty so long to find evaporates when Bea’s young adult son, Aaron, living under their supervision while on probation for drug possession, disappears. If Aaron doesn’t return soon, he will be sent back to jail.

Aaron eventually turns up with a vague story about a camping trip with his troubled girlfriend, Mae, that ended in a fight and a long hitchhike home. Days later, when she still hasn’t returned, suspicion falls on Aaron, and when Mae is subsequently discovered dead, Aaron is arrested and set for trial on charges of first degree murder.

Faced with few choices and even fewer hopes, Bea begs Rusty to return to court one last time, to defend her son and to save their last best hope for happiness. For Rusty, the question is not whether to defend Aaron, or whether the boy is in fact innocent—it’s whether the system to which he has devoted his life can ever provide true justice for those who are presumed guilty.

I must confess the size of this book (over 500 pages) put me off a little as I’m not big on commitment, but as I had a weekend (ie. three nights – more importantly three baths) ahead of me I dove on in (figuratively… cos my bathtub’s not that big!). With such a long time between books Turow thankfully doesn’t expect us to remember a lot of details about his lead/s so provides backstory. There are also a plethora of new players given that same time lapse – here in the form of Rusty’s fiancé (Bea) and her son (Aaron). And then there’s Bea’s father (Joe) who was drunk and abusive as a husband and father, but is a devoted grandfather and though Bea appreciates the strong relationship between Joe and Aaron, she’s bitter that she missed out on that experience with Joe as a father.

I liked that Turow gives us flawed characters (and those who’ve read previous books know he doesn’t shy away from lead characters being perpetrators) and here it’s in the form of Aaron who’s been in prison for drug possession and is a former addict. Aaron however is still (seemingly) a good guy so it’s easy for readers to be in his corner when he’s accused of killing his (on-again/off-again) girlfriend.

Long-story-short, Rusty ends up defending Aaron though he realises his seven-year relationship with Bea might not survive the trial and its outcome. He’s up against an overly-confident and rarely tested DA but (unfortunately for Aaron, who’s African American and was adopted by Bea and her husband at birth) the trial is held where Mae’s body was found… in a very white (and somewhat intolerant) community.

This book actually took me four nights to read. It’s long as I mentioned, but it’s also dense. With facts and with detail, which (surprisingly) I appreciated. I was initially a bit perplexed as Turow skips over any trial prep so I worried we’d missed looking at all of the evidence, but Turow (well, Rusty) revisits that in the trial itself rather than before, so we’re often experiencing the ‘reveals’ or ‘gotcha’ moments at the same time as the judge, jury and prosecution. And it has to be said, many of those reveals are very clever.

Turow lets Rusty win most of the battles he fights against the DA in the courtroom and happily, the judge is a fair and moderate player. Rusty credits his investigator Susan with most of the discoveries during the trial – turning over rocks the prosecution intended to remain in place and pulling rabbits out of hats (or witnesses out of oblivion). I don’t recall if she’s featured in previous books but her smarts are almost worth her own spin-off series.

The only very-personal irk I had here related to a couple of references (almost word for word as it happens) Rusty makes to the potential end of his relationship with Bea… his main fear being that ‘he’d have to start over’ (pp 156 & 338). Is that a guy thing? I wondered. The assumption that you need to be WITH someone and can’t exist alone?! I was unsure if it reflected men’s thoughts in general (ie. one woman disappears and must be replaced) or Turow’s…  or some specific interdependency quirk Turow endows upon Rusty. Anyhoo…

The twists and reveals are doled out here at an even pace and it makes this a literal page-turner as the suspense continues until the book’s conclusion – ie. after the trial’s over. This is a great legal thriller by Turow who’s lost none of the elan he showed in the first in this series nearly four decades ( and a dozen novels) ago and it’s kinda enviable really… reappearing to pull out a blinder every few years.

Presumed Guilty by Scott Turow will be published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in early January 2025.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.