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reviews

Innocent

Scott Turow
Grand Central Publishing (2010)
ISBN 9780446562423
Reviewed by Narayan Radhakrishnan for RebeccasReads.com (05/10)


“Presumed Innocent” is a work that created a new sub-genre in the wide world of mysteries and thrillers…the legal thriller genre. The author was a mild, unassuming, practicing attorney by name Scott Turow. The book caught the publishing world by storm, prompting many a lawyer to try their hands at writing a thriller. Most of them failed and vanished after a couple of books, a few achieved moderate success while a few became superstars (read as John Grisham). But the man who started it all, never became a victim of commercial churn-it-out type of novels. All books written since “Presumed Innocent” like “Burden of Proof”, Pleading Guilty”, Personal Injuries” and “Limitations” were well researched, tautly crafted legal novels and all were set in the fictional Kindle County.

“Innocent” is a the natural sequel, a natural continuation of the flow of events in Rusty Sabich’s life- twenty years since the murder trial in “Presumed Innocent”. Sabich is now the chief judge in the Appellate court and is a sure contender to the election to the Supreme Court. But when Barbara, Rusty’s wife apparently dies in sleep- two months prior to the election day- and when Rusty decides to keep the fact of death a secret close to twenty four hours after the death- the prosecuting Attorney’s office begins to suspect that there is something more than what meets the eye. Tommy Molto, the acting Prosecuting Attorney has a score to settle and soon Sabich is again on trial for murder. Sabich is supremely confident that he will be proved not guilty of murder, but what he fears is that some of his recent past indiscretions might be revealed during the course of his trial… some aspects of his life which might cloud the judgment of the jury, judge and most importantly his son. He seeks counsel and enters lawyer Sandy Stern…the defense attorney who was the saviour in the case of 1987.  A thrilling courtroom drama follows and with the accused Sabich himself willing to enter the box- it is a match of wits between an experienced prosecuting attorney and an experienced lawyer turned judge turned accused. The novel culminates in a finish that only Turow can think of.

I feel that Turow has in his sleeve one more sequel, most probably featuring Nat Sabich as the protagonist- him discovering more secrets of his father’s past. I also believe that in 2012 we can see Harrison Ford returning to the screen as Rusty Sabich in the movie version of “Innocent”. An exquisite novel, “Innocent” proves why Turow is the Beethoven and Grisham is the Michael Jackson among contemporary lawyer novelists.