Slow start and the dialogue was more about what they didn't say in the courtroom that what they did say and were implying.
While I guessed who was the murderer way before that fact was revealed. I stil did enjoy the book.
(spoiler alert) The wife elaborately planned and framed her husband but when she admitted to the murderer, she stated that she would have confessed to the brutal premediated murder before seeing her husband go to jail-I did not believe her for a minute-she woud have let her unfaithful husband rot in jail.

While I have not seen the movie, Harrison Ford cast as the wimpy ,infatuated and wimpy lover would be totally miscast not an Indian Jones genre for him- William Hurt played a similar character in Body Heat to perfection.

Video of Best Legal Thrillers of All Time coming...

Brilliant. A classic. Read it. The movie was very faithful to the novel, so if you've seen it, the ending's blown for you.

If you haven't seen the movie you're very lucky to have one of the best mysteries ever written waiting for you.

A re-read for me.

It's many years since I saw the movie. It was good but nowhere as near as good as the book.

I really can't do much better than copy the blurb and tell you if you have never read this book, get it right now! It's a masterpiece. Key words: tangled web.

Prosecutor Rusty Sabich enters a nightmare world when Carolyn, a beautiful attorney with whom he has been having an affair, is found raped and strangled. He stands accused.

Fighting to prove his innocence, Rusty uncovers a tangled web of sex, corruption and betrayal. With no one to trust, it's up to Rusty to uncover who is really behind this deadly crime .

Now i get what all the praise is about! If anything i enjoyed it more than i had hoped, even after reading its accolades. I mean what else can i say?! It deserves all it got! & imo it's still in a league of its own, so many years (& great legal thrillers) later. But i do really want to recommend the audiobook. The narrator was exceptional!! You could feel the tension. It's a long 1 (about 16 hours) but i genuinely wasn't bored for a second. I felt like i could close my eyes & be IN that courtroom! So good. So smart. If anything, I'm actually in mourning now that its over. I know i can't possibly expect the entire series to be this extraordinary but I'm still super excited that there's more.

A famous novel I had been meaning to read since long, Presumed Innocent didn't disappointment me. It is a complex, multi-layered murder-mystery cum court-room-drama that hooked me from the start to finish. Though I had some trouble with the meandering narration, especially that dealing with the narrator's thoughts and feelings, in the end, I felt the satisfaction of having read something good.

An excellent murder mystery novel that keeps you guessing to the very end. Well written with strong characters and lots of twists and turns.
Kept me interested throughout.

I enjoyed this even more the second time I read it. Of course there had to be a good thirty years between readings so that I could forget the many twists and turns that it took on its way to a surprise ending.

My thanks to the folks at the  The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group for giving me the opportunity to read and discuss this and many other fine books.

For a long time in the book I felt it was so completely a male dominated novel that, while it would be well written, it would be no more than factually competent in terms of court procedures. Apart from one being the voiceless murder victim and another the wife of the narrator, the women were in minor roles, secretaries, assistants, cleaning ladies. Other than the victim was there any need to have them there?

All the action was between the defence lawyers and prosecuting attorneys of Kindle County, somewhere in the American Midwest. Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rusty Sabich has had an affair with a colleague, Carolyn Polhemus, an affair he has kept secret. Then Carolyn is found murdered in her own apartment. Rusty is put in charge of the investigation and gets caught in what seems to be a web of intrigue, business and political rivalry and personal in-fighting. Evidence is brought to light that shows Rusty had been in Carolyn's apartment on the day she was killed. He moves from being chief investigator to chief suspect and faces trial on a charge of murder.

In the course of the trial, which is brilliantly described, we find more about Carolyn's history. An attractive and ambitious woman, she was happy to advance her career with sexual favours and providing under the counter and illegal assistance in corrupt activities. It seems most of the senior male officers of Kindle County's prosecution and legal department had found her attractions impossible to resist at various times. As cracks appear in the evidence and widen, Rusty's possible guilt becomes more and more doubtful.

But, if Rusty didn't do it, who was the murderer? Enter the women to turn a courtroom drama, and a very good one, into a disturbing murder mystery and lift the novel from good and emotionally moving to outstanding. Suddenly the men become the bit part players. Then, in a final breath we are called on to ask, just how innocent was Rusty Sabich?

Psychological thriller or legal thriller? You be the judge

While PRESUMED INNOCENT might be most commonly categorized as a legal thriller, one could definitely make a case for calling it a psychological thriller. In much the same fashion as the appeal of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch canon starts with the noir angst-ridden psychological under-pinnings of his main characters, Scott Turow narrates much of his story via the thoughts of Rusty Sabich, the former deputy prosecutor of the Kindle County DA's office.

The basic plot premise is exciting! Raymond Horgan, Sabich's boss and incumbent in the Kindle County prosecutor's position is squared off against Nico Della Guardia in the upcoming election. When Carolyn Polhemus, one of Sabich's colleagues in the office is found murdered, Horgan assigns the job to Sabich. But when Horgan loses the election, Della Guardia discovers that Sabich and Polhemus once had an affair. The magnifying glass of the investigation is focused onto Sabich and he is horrified to discover that he is now the sole suspect for the murder.

We feel like Sabich isn't the murder. Indeed, we very much want to belive that Sabich isn't the murder. But the beauty of the suspense in this novel is that we are never sure about the culprit and the true motives for the murder until the final few pages.

Lots of superb legal drama with lots of colour and detail presented from both sides of a number of different fences - prosecution vs defense; police and investigation vs judiciary; victim vs villain; and husband vs wife, to name only a few.

If you're looking for action in this one, you're bound to be disappointed. This is a thinking man's thriller, a cerebral novel that is plot and character driven. As another reviewer once noted, it's a shame that very little that Scott Turow has written since has measured up to the very high bar that he set for himself with this debut novel.

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

3.5 Stars

My first read for this author and I have very much enjoyed it. Love me a good legal thriller