Scott Turow’s sequel to his best-selling Presumed Innocent perpetuates some of the same flaws as the original novel: too long, too static, and too derivative. In the original novel, Rusty Savich, is charged with murdering a woman he was having an affair with. The strengths of Presumed Innocent were the court room scenes and the cunning legal strategy. Innocent has court room scenes, but not enough of them. And Turow annoyed me with his “technique” of switching from first-person narration to third-person narration. Innocent plays with irony as Savich, now a judge and seemingly brain-addled, gets into another affair with a much younger woman, violates basic legal procedure by revealing a pending verdict to a defendant (who, not surprisingly, skips bail), and then is accused of murdering his bipolar wife. At least a 100 pages of this 400+ page novel could have been edited out. I wonder if Harrison Ford will play Savich in the movie version of Innocent. GRADE: C
(Thanks to the North Tonawanda Public Library for providing this book.)
You can’t go home again, I guess. I’m not surprised it was a mistake to try and write a sequel 20+ years later. I’m guessing he was out of fresh ideas, like Hollywood. I bet you’re right about them filming this.
I guessing Harrison Ford would be interested in reprising his role as Rusty Savich, Jeff. Maybe the movie version will be better than this book.
Presumed Innocent was such a powerhouse. I’ll probably pass on ever reading this sequel.
The sequel to PRESUMED INNOCENT is disappointing, David. But maybe a good movie script can salvage the story.
Countering popular opinion, I thought the original was only so-so. This is certainly one I won’t be reading.
I found the court room scenes and legal strategy the strength of both PRESUMED INNOCENT and INNOCENT, Rick. But both books are populated by repellent characters including the main character, Rusty Savich.