Review: "Presumed Guilty," Scott Turow

By Liz Soares

Retired judge Rusty Sabich, whom readers first met in 1987 in the courtroom thriller Presumed Innocent,is now living a good life in a quiet midwestern lakeside town. He’s involved in a relationship with Bea, an elementary-school principal whom he adores, and doing some arbitration work to keep his hand in the legal field. Rusty enjoys meeting his friend, a fellow former judge, Mansfield, “Mansy” Potter, for coffee and far-reaching conversation.

But trouble soon rears its ugly head. Bea’s adopted son Aaron is on probabtion for drug possession when he disappears, headed for the woods with his beautiful, brilliant, but troubled girlfriend, Mae Potter, Mansy’s granddaughter.

Rusty and Bea are beside themselves, but Aaron soon returns, and tests clean for drugs.

Mae, however, is nowhere to be found.

Aaron says they went camping to discuss marriage and had agreed to shut off their phones. But Mae had decided she wanted to become an influencer, and was incessantly taking selfies of herself. Angry, Aaron took her phone and took off, hitchhiking his way back home.

Mae, he tells Rusty, always carried cash. He figured she’d just buy a pay-as-you-go phone at a convenience store. She has her car. Aaron says he has no idea where she might be.

Two weeks later, Mae turns up dead in her car in a remote state park. At first, it looks like an accident, but officials soon determine she was strangled. Aaron is arrested and charged.

Rusty reluctantly takes the case after he realizes there’s a dearth of experienced homicide lawyers in the rural county. Also, Aaron is black, and Rusty fears the young man will face racism in the predominantly white region. Rusty needs to take the helm to protect him.

Rusty realizes he could wreck his relationship with Bea, no matter what the verdict is. She is a fierce defender of her son, and at one point seems poised to confess to the murder to save him. Rusty’s decision quickly ruins his friendship with Mansy.

But Rusty is determined, and soon regains the compeitive fire of his youth. His investigations stir up old secrets, one of which threatens to ruin his new life. He’s not happy when Aaron insists on testifying. But there’s hope: the prosecution’s seemingly open-and-shut case contains a few big holes.

Presumed Guilty is a compelling combination of mystery, family novel and courtroom drama. It’s a long book (534 pages), with rich descriptions of people and locations. But the action does not lag—Aaron has gone missing on page one and the reader is off from there.

I especially enjoyed the varied cast of characters. Bea’s father, Joe Mena, is a cantankerous kook who nonetheless has been a solid force in his grandson Aaron’s life. Susan, Rusty’s more than able assistant, sports a rainbow Mohawk and rides with a Harley contingent on the weekends. Even a Missouri woman who calls Aaron by mistake and thus strengthens his alibi is lovingly drawn.

I was also impressed by the way Turow depicted Aaron’s speech—abbreviated, slangy and entirely appropriate for a young man in 21st century America.

There are no major plot twists like in Presumed Innocent. The pleasure in reading this book is rooting not just for Aaron but for Rusty. He gets the unexpected chance to shine again in the courtroom at age 77, and he makes the most of it in his quest to see that justice is done.