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Kindle County Legal Thriller #1

Presumed Innocent

scott turow

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In Presumed Innocent, Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case -- the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be presumed innocent.

0 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1,1987
Series
Kindle County Legal Thriller
Literary awards
cwa silver dagger, martin beck award, 

This edition

Format
0 pages, Hardcover
Published
July 1, 1987 by Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN
9785552027576
ASIN
5552027574
Language
Spanish; Castilian
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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scott turow

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 98 votes)
5 stars
34(35%)
4 stars
37(38%)
3 stars
27(28%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
98 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Gandeloft
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Legal thriller, high on politics, told in the first person by Rusty Sabich, husband, father, #2 prosecutor and #1 suspect. A fancy smooth talker when he wants to be and he does a lot of it. Sometimes a bit too much for my taste. Especially when it comes to backgrounds and such. Better, much better is when he deals with the present. The murder of Carolyn, who he shared a workplace and a bed with. Yup, Rusty's been a naughty boy. But is he guilty as well? A juicy case with multiple interests and a vague line between truth and lies. Slippery stuff.
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asakuraShinji
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The show was better. FRTC.
₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵୨୧ · · ♡ · · ୨୧‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊
The Apple TV series for this book just started last night - with ... hello. Jake Gyllenhaal. And now I need to read this.

It's a rare day indeed when I say - I hope the book is as good as the show. Freaking addictive and mind binding.



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ise24
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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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.
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Helios21
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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7/10

An enjoyable legal thriller that really hits it stride in the courtroom and less so in the bits outside of the courtroom. I thought it was an interesting, and quite novel, idea to set the first pages after the murder has occurred and then fill in the blanks as you go along. A lot of back story was needed to get the reader up to speed and this is when things were a little slow and sometimes less interesting with the political campaign less absorbing but we know what is just around the corner.

When the story gets into the courtroom the book was hard to put down. The dialogue flowed with ease and there were many times when you were keen to just read that next chapter to find out what was going to happen instead of going to sleep.

Whilst the solution to the murder and side plots weren't all that great in the end it had some of the best courtroom interrogations I've read in a long time.

If only the whole story was as tight as those scenes this would have been much higher rated overall. Worth a read if this is a genre you're interested in.

If you enjoy this try: "The Lincoln Lawyer" by Michael Connelly
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Krazy124
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Protagonist (and narrator) Rusty Sabich is the Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for Kindle County. When his fingerprints are found at the scene of a crime, he finds himself accused of murder. The bulk of the story is a courtroom drama about Sabich’s trial. There are several additional simultaneous plotlines involving a political campaign, Rusty’s family life, and a past case involving bribery.

The courtroom scenes are the heart of the novel, and the author definitely has a knack for keeping the curiosity level high. One of the highlights of the book is the characterization of defense attorney Alejandro Stern – he is such a great character, and I enjoyed his scenes more than any of the main players. The relationship between Rusty and his seven-year-old son is also beautifully portrayed. It occasionally feels a bit long, with subplots going into way too much graphic detail for my taste, especially descriptions of violent crimes unrelated to the murder.

Published in 1987, it is a little dated and the female victim is a standard stereotype. It is set in a time prior to widespread admissibility of DNA evidence. I was a little disappointed in the resolution (I found it rather far-fetched), but the last half is definitely a page-turner.

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tam5509
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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This is the first book I remember my mom recommending to me as an adult. And what a read!

You always wonder if a book you loved decades ago will hold up to your memories. Published in 1987, this is dated at times/not politically correct, but still, SO worth a read. Turow is an attorney who knows his way around a courtroom and it shows. 461 pages and he had me hanging on every word.

If you want to be swept away by a courtroom thriller, this is a great one to try. I recently read the most recent book in this series, Suspect, but haven't read the other ten books! So I decided to reread this one and then try the series.

Edward Hermann did an amazing job with the audio narration, too. This is a murder mystery that's low on violence - but, fair warning, has a fair amount of sex. It's not gratuitous, important to the story, but if that bugs you, try something else.

So glad this one lived up to my memory of it. Once again, very hard to put down.
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100thlurker
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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First of all, I was more than surprised to find out that Turow came before Grisham. This book was published in 1987 while Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill came out a year later, and actually encouraged Grisham to embark on a writing career.

Presumed Innocent is a well crafted blend of mystery and legal thriller. The plot has many twists and turns and the reader is empathizing with Rusty Sabich all the way. It has great court room scenes, sharp dialogue, and good character development, filled with all the saucy human emotions and foibles that fiction readers savor - forbidden passion, betrayal, corruption, nasty local politics, and bitter jealousy.

Despite continuing on in his writing, this debut novel probably remains as Turow's best.
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Neku_Tennyson
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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A book that felt like it took me an entire century to read. To be fair, I think we could have edited out about 100 pages of it.

However, well done, very well done. The ending surprised me.

What I’m looking most forward to is reading the other 2 in the trilogy as they seem to be written with a few or several years between the writing and I want to see Rusty age in real-time. I think I’ve heard that Presumed Guilty that was just released in January begins with Rusty being 77 years old. He is 40 in this book. My guess is that this will be an incredible character study to read the next 2 knowing that Turow is investing his own aging wisdom into Rusty for Presumed Guilty.

I will report back. Standby though because first I must soothe my Alaska obsession and read that passion away with a book about an Iditarod vet and Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey and another about Wolves by Seth Kantner and maybe something by John McPhee.
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