by Scott Turow, 2025
Scott Turow released this book as a follow-up to his 1987 blockbuster, Presumed Innocent, where we met his former prosecutor and former judge, Rusty Sabich, for the first time. In an interview for The New York Times, I learned that the initial idea for Presumed Guilty was the splashy, headline-grabbing disappearance, and then murder, of 22-year-old Gabby Petito in 2021, who was killed on a cross-country camping trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie. As that tragedy was still fresh in my mind, and knowing how Turow is a master of the legal thriller, I had to pick this book up. Once I did, it was impossible to put down.
[This page contains affiliate links, meaning if you make a purchase from a link on this page, I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.]
Rusty is now 77 years old and is finally settled down and happy. He’s retired from the legal profession and divorced from his wife Barbara, and now considers that the single life is how he will spend his sunset years. And he’s okay with that.
But life surprises him by bringing along a woman named Bea. A slow and uneasy courtship builds into something he didn’t see coming but doesn’t resist once it arrives: he falls in love in his late 70s and finds himself engaged to be married, living with his fiancée.
Of course, at this age, life is never without complications. Bea has an adopted Black son who is under her court-ordered supervision while on probation for drug possession. Aaron disappears one weekend and doesn’t answer his phone, which is a violation of his probation; if he doesn’t return soon or make contact with his probation officer, he goes back to jail. Aaron’s long-time girlfriend Mae has also disappeared, and it is assumed they are together.
Within a few days, Aaron finally returns, but he is alone. He tells a cockamamie story about him and Mae going on a camping trip to “have some alone time, seriously discuss the idea of getting married, and just leave all the distractions behind. Turn off the phones.” But instead they have a huge fight because “she wouldn’t turn off her damn phone and wouldn’t quit with the selfies and sending the videos to her fans.” So he snapped and he grabbed her phone, took it with him and left, hitchhiking home.
When both sets of parents realize that Aaron has left his girlfriend out in the wilderness alone, with no phone and probably very little money, in a hysterical state of mind, it doesn’t go well for Aaron. Days go by and Mae does not return. Search parties eventually find her dead by the side of the road, in her vehicle. With Aaron being the last person to see her alive, his criminal record, and a dicey story about the weekend, he is arrested for her murder.
Bea begs Rusty to come out of retirement to be Aaron’s lawyer and defend him in this murder case. Rusty has about 100 reasons why this is a bad idea: he was always the prosecutor, never the defending attorney, so he has no real experience at this. He is too close to case, being Aaron is Bea’s son—he’s been living with him, for God’s sake! And he is terrified that if he does so, it will permanently change the idyllic life he has finally found with Bea—if he loses the case, in Bea’s eyes, he will always be the attorney who sent her son to prison. Even during the preparation, trials like this are grueling months of 24/7 work where he can’t discuss a single thing with the one person who will want to know everything that’s going on, and it will tear Bea up. Rusty knows it will totally change the landscape of their relationship; Bea has no idea what’s she’s asking for.
But after he makes calls to everyone he knows, and they realize they can’t afford to hire the expertise they need, Rusty agrees to represent Aaron.
The defense of this young Black man is riveting beyond anything I’ve read in a long time. I highly recommend this book.
