On January 14th, 2025, Presumed Guilty, the all-new novel from New York Times bestselling author Scott Turow, will hit bookstores everywhere.
Turow, a retired partner of a major international law firm, was first published in 1987 when his acclaimed debut novel, Presumed Innocent, took the legal thriller genre by storm. Turow followed up his smash hit first book by releasing a new novel every three years between ’87 and 2005. In total, he’s released 13 novels along with a couple of nonfiction books, including, most recently, Suspect, which was released in 2022.
Innocent (2010) was the first direct follow-up to Presumed Innocent (1987) and earned universal praise from readers and critics alike. Though it was already adapted for film in 199o (Harrison Ford starred as Rozat K. “Rusty” Sabich), Presumed Innocent (same title as the book and the ’90 film) was again adapted, this time for television, by Apple TV+ with David E. Kelley serving as the show’s creator and showrunner and actor Jake Gyllenhaal starring as Rusty Sabich. That show landed on the streaming platform back in June of this year and quickly earned a season-two order by Apple.
Now, with the buzz around his beloved characters at an all-time height, Turow will revisit his fan-favorite universe with Presumed Guilty, which follows Rusty, now a retired judge, as he returns to the courtroom one last time in hopes of keeping his partner’s son out of jail when the young man becomes a suspect in what feels very much like a fictionalized account of the real-life missing person’s case of Gabby Petito, who was killed her by boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, before he eventually took his own life following intense media scrutiny and 24/7 coverage back in 2021.
Check out the official cover art and plot details below.
Rusty is a retired judge attempting a third act in life with a loving soon-to-be wife, Bea, with whom he shares both a restful home on an idyllic lake in the rural Midwest and a plaintive hope that this marriage will be his best, and his last. But the peace that’s taken Rusty so long to find evaporates when Bea’s young adult son, Aaron, living under their supervision while on probation for drug possession, disappears. If Aaron doesn’t return soon, he will be sent back to jail.
Aaron eventually turns up with a vague story about a camping trip with his troubled girlfriend, Mae, that ended in a fight and a long hitchhike home. Days later, when she still hasn’t returned, suspicion falls on Aaron, and when Mae is subsequently discovered dead, Aaron is arrested and set for trial on charges of first-degree murder.
Faced with few choices and even fewer hopes, Bea begs Rusty to return to court one last time, to defend her son and to save their last best hope for happiness. For Rusty, the question is not whether to defend Aaron, or whether the boy is in fact innocent—it’s whether the system to which he has devoted his life can ever provide true justice for those who are presumed guilty.
