Author:  Scott Turow
Title:  Innocent
Publisher:  Grand Central Publishing

Believe it or not, things have not always been this way. There was a time before television dramas like Law and Order and JAG. There was a time before John Grisham; a epoch in history before A Time to Kill, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief. There was a time before the legal thriller captured America's collective imagination, became a mainstay of primetime TV, and filled row upon row of bookshelves.

That time was 1987.

That time was when Scott Turow's first novel, Presumed Innocent introduced America to the intrigue and danger lurking in the gray world between law and justice. Before Turow, the closest thing we had to legal suspense was To Kill a Mockingbird. Afterward, countless authors have sought to emulate his success.

In 1987, Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent inaugurated an era of litigation fascination. We have been in love with tales of courtroom crimes and corruption ever since. Now, Turow seeks to reach back 23 years and continue the story that started them all with Innocent, his latest novel.

In Innocent, Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto reprise the bitter legal rivalry that has distanced them for the two decades since Presumed Innocent. Twenty-three years ago, both men were high-powered legal minds who squared off when Molto prosecuted Sabich for murder. Molto's case fell apart during the trial, and Sabich went free.

Now, Rusty Sabich is a grey-haired appellate court judge up for election to the State Supreme Court, reaching for one last plateau in the twilight years of his long career. There's no love lost between the aging judge and Molto, now a seasoned acting prosecuting attorney who has frequent courtroom run-ins with his long-time nemesis.

Though their hair has grayed and their waistlines expanded, for Sabich and Molto, some things never change.  Just as in Presumed Innocent, Sabich is playing with fire with an attractive female associate—despite misgivings about the troubles his last affair caused him. Meanwhile, Molto has married a new young bride and is looking to protect his career from any more public embarrassments like what he suffered at Sabich's trial, 23 years ago.

As hard as Molto has tried to avoid another legal confrontation with Sabich, fate brings them to head-to-head once again, when he accuses the judge of murdering his own wife. It's a high-stakes game of point and counterpoint where Sabich's legacy and Molto's career are on the line when the gavel falls.

The plot feels vaguely familiar, like something you've seen on Law and Order or read from another legal thriller author. That's because Innocent is not merely a plot, it is the court drama archetype. Scott Turow is why these plots have become almost cliché. And he still spins his stories as well as anyone.

Cracking open Innocent is like flipping on a time machine. Turow takes us back to what crime thrillers were like before all the merchandizing; before the formulaic plots from writers cranking out two books a year. Innocent transports the reader back to when writing a mystery novel was not a get-rich-quick scheme as Turow turns the time machine dial back to 1987.

After almost 25 years of courtroom dramas in print, on TV, and in theaters, Scott Turow may not offer quite the surprise and impact he once did. Some readers may be put off by occasional outbursts of obscene language. But for legal-thriller purists, Turow's twisting ride of justice and revenge makes Innocent a classic jaunt to where legal thrillers are bottled at the source—from the man who took us there for our first taste of pure, litigated suspense so long ago…

In a more Innocent time.


**This review first published on May 28, 2010.