New Hampshire Public Radio
Given the oceans of crime-related fiction that now flood the market, it might be hard to appreciate the impact of a single book, Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, when it appeared in 1987. Its hero, Rusty Sabich, was a prosecuting attorney entitled to the presumption of innocence, as the law requires, when an ambitious rival puts him on trial for the murder of a colleague. The book’s mesmerizing courtroom scenes and a gobsmacking twist made it a sensation that still resonates, thanks partly to a hit movie with Harrison Ford and a retooled streaming series starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
Now Turow returns to his character with Presumed Guilty (following the 2010 sequel Innocent, also featuring Rusty). The book finds the retired judge living in a resort-y Upper Midwest town a comfortable distance from the Kindle County of Presumed Innocent. At 76, he has a house on a lake and has gotten engaged to Bea Housley, the local grade-school principal. Everything in his heretofore turbulent life has fallen into place. He can hardly believe his luck, until a familiar scenario threatens to upend his contented last act.
