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Summary: The best of this ilk.
Review: This is the best courtroom novel one will ever read. Forget the film which changes a significant dimension to the ending.When I finished the book I was on a commuter train. I looked around and realized that every one of the innocent looking travelers could be, under given circumstances, the perpetrator of a similar crime.
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Summary: No presumption needed - it remains the best of the genre.
Review: Presumed Innocent remains the preeminent legal thriller (my second reading). Plot and characterizations are superb, especially rewarding is that Turow has provided plausible motivations for his characters' actions. He wraps up it all up with a gut-wrenching ending.
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Summary: One of the best contemporary books I have read.
Review: This book is spectacular. The mystery is well developed and well concealed. Not to long ago I was sitting in an airport watching a woman read the book. She was about two thirds through it and I remember thinking "you have no idea what is in store for you".
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Summary: Much more than meets the eye--and a Christiesque ending!
Review: Rusty Sabich, a prosecutor and a married man, is accused of murdering his former lover, Carolyn Polhemus. The bureaucracy that entangles Rusty is filled with people whom he knows--and whose failings and dreams he learns more about every day of his ordeal. We learn much about Carolyn, and a good deal about Rusty and what makes him tick--such as that he still tries to please his unpleasable (and dead) father by toadying to his ungrateful boss. This book has been attacked as sexist because (among other equally misguided reasons) superficially, the dead woman comes acoss as an utterly self-serving virago. But in the world of this book, nothing is as simple as it seems. EVERYONE has feet of clay, even the seeming saints. Carolyn was an abused child and played a role--a number of roles--to help her deal with her traumatic past. Chicagoans will get an extra kick out of this story, which takes place in "Kindle" County (Kindle--Cook--get it?) and is filled with suspiciously familiar-sounding references to local political shenanigans. The solution, by the way, is a tribute to Agatha Christie. You slap your forehead and say, "Of course!" But Dame Agatha, much as I admire her, didn't write this well on her best day.
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Summary: I've not been so inspired to write 'til I read his prose.
Review: Normally, books are a means of escape or an exercise in fueling my mind. However, this gem, although it is a decade old, still affects me as no other book has since. The prose is fascinating and rythmic. It inspired me to aspire to be my husband's Eve and to make a way for my Adam to come home.
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Summary: The word "thriller" has now a new meaning
Review: This book must be read without breathing, the story takes you out of your real world and sends you in a complex terrifyng land of fear and disperation, in the middle of an epic lawyers battle, between justice and political power. This book is a lawyer's dream...
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Summary: The legal thriller that got it all fired up; still fantastic
Review: I recently re-read this book (for the 4th or 5th) time. It really kinda got the whole "legal thriller" genre going in the last ten years. It's still the best. This is one fantastic book; the trial, which is most of the last third of the book, is without a doubt one of the best. I agree with the other reviewers that said Turow's other books (well, his fictional ones) weren't nearly as good. In fact, compared to Presumed Innocent, they stink. But I think that the crafting of this book shows, while those appear to be driven by market pressures (he was THE hot name, so the publisher was probably going nuts to get the next books out). If you don't have this book, buy it, read it, and then put it somewhere on the shelf where you'll find it again in a year or two. Pull it back down, and read it again.
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Summary: Powerful and Compelling
Review: Excellent book. Rusty's complexity, desperation and yearning captivated me. The posturing of the courtroom lawyers intrigued me, as did the murder victim's ruthless ambition.
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Summary: Probably the ONE & ONLY Readable Turow
Review: This one was good, but you have to plough along the endless narrations page after page. It's sequal, BURDEN OF PROOF, was a sleepily and noddingly reading experience; PLEADING GUILTY, a terribly and ridiculously plotted boring story, the ending was as ridiculous as the ending of Grisham's THE FIRM, senselessly tasteless! The 4th, THE LAW OF OUR FATHERS, another bomb
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Summary: More surprises than the foot of the tree on Christmas Eve
Review: She's dead before the book even begins, but Carolyn's lust for life is evident on every page. Not a single character in this book is untouched by her. Literally. Luscious lawyer Rusty was one of many caught up in her web, and there's enough circumstantial evidence to put him away for a long, long time. The prosecutor is now a defendant. You will be guessing until the last few pages. . .and even then you'll wonder if it's real or just lawyer talk. Turow's best work is here. Harrison Ford, Bonnie Bedelia, and the late Raul Julia brought it to life on the big screen. Enjoy. .
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