Chicago attorney and author Scott Turow, poses in a conference room at his law firm in Chicago.The Associated Press
An assumptive editor's note commandeers the first page of the advance promo copy: "Here is the book you've been waiting twenty years for." Twenty-three years, but who's counting? And were we really waiting for a sequel to Presumed Innocent?
Scott Turow's first fiction title, from 1987, was a natural standalone that long resisted pregnancy, but nine books later, has given birth to a look-alike, called simply Innocent.
One suspects Turow finally succumbed to the blandishments of agent and/or publisher to capitalize on the big sales of his breakthrough novel, a splendidly evoked courtroom drama with a twist to die for and an intriguing concept: The hero, a late-thirtyish prosecutor, finds himself charged with murder.
Now, Rusty Sabich is 60 and chief judge of an appellate court, and again he has been charged with murder. During his first go-round, he was acquitted thanks in large measure to the mannerly savvy of pre-eminent defence counsel Sandy Stern. In 2009, he is again defended by Stern, now aged and ill.
In the 1987 book, Sabich was shtupping brilliant, gorgeous Carolyn Polhemus - the lawyer he allegedly snuffed - behind the back of his tormented wife, Barbara. In 2009, he finds himself in an energetic though Viagra-less affair with another brilliant, gorgeous (and much younger) lawyer. The murder victim this time is Barbara.
In both trials, the prosecuting attorney is blue-collar bulldog Tommy Molto, who, in 2009, seeks redemption for having become the Kindle County laughingstock after his earlier case against Sabich imploded.
Presumed Innocent surprised a lot of people, particularly critics of the simplistic courtroom dramas of the sort popularized by Erle Stanley Gardner. Not only did Turow (an accomplished trial counsel) take readers by the hand through the dingy recesses of the legal and political systems, including their corruption and gamesmanship, but dug deep into character, with a trenchant exposition of erotic obsession. And it was superbly written, a truly literary novel.
Innocent is even more stylishly written, and despite the echoing themes and characters, I also found it more compelling. Maybe because of the familiar themes and characters. (Sequels are easier reads, and easier to write; it's not such a workout creating character - you add some intervening history, a few wrinkles and a paunch, et voilà.)
Innocent is also more conceptually interesting. Early chapters flash back, then forward, to set the scene for the trial, which then proceeds linearly until Turow guides us through several switchbacks, a bittersweet climax and, regrettably, a laboured denouement.
Presumed was written from a single point of view: the first-person, present-tense voice of Rusty Sabich. Innocent is told by four distinct, pitch-perfect voices: Sabich, his lover Anna, his son Nat, and prosecutor Molto, who comes brilliantly off the page - even though Turow has relegated this "chronically blunt personality," who would as soon dream of cheating on his wife as flying to the moon, to third-person, past-tense status.
Nat is less interesting, an overly sensitive 25-year-old academic lawyer (everyone in this book but a few walk-ons has a law degree), but he gets the girl, scooping Anna from his father.
There are no heroes here. I imagine Turow wants us to sympathize with Sabich, but given his inability to keep it in his pants (he calls this inability love), that's not easy. Both his assignations have sown the seeds of death.
At least he's self-aware enough to admit he lacks self-awareness. Of his wife, he says: "Nearly four decades on, I still have no clear idea what it was I wanted from her so deeply, so intensely, that it bound me to her against all reason." Nat recognizes the problem too, telling his dad: "You've always pushed emotions down like somebody sticking wadding into a cannon. Maybe it'll blow later."
For that, we'll wait for the sequel.
William Deverell's 15th novel, Snow Job, features his own self-doubting legal beagle: fusty, crusty Arthur Beauchamp.