Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, mental illness, and substance use. 

Presumed Guilty is the third book in a legal thriller series following Rusty Sabich and his interactions with the criminal justice system. Turow introduced Rusty in Presumed Innocent (1987), his first novel set in Kindle County. Ten of Turow’s novels take place in this fictional Midwestern county, and many characters recur to differing degrees. In Presumed Innocent, Rusty, a prosecutor, investigates the murder of his colleague and once-lover, Carolyn Polhemus, despite his conflict of interest. After his boss, Raymond Horgan, loses his re-election, his replacement, Nico Della Guardia, charges Rusty with Carolyn’s murder. Rusty and his defense lawyer, Sandy Stern, fight against Della Guardia and his deputy, Tommy Molto, and ultimately discredit the prosecution’s circumstantial evidence. Rusty’s wife, Barbara, confesses privately to killing Carolyn, but Rusty doesn’t break up the marriage for their son Nat’s sake.

Rusty draws on this experience in Presumed Guilty, as he must show to the jury that Jackdorp and Glowoski’s circumstantial evidence doesn’t conclusively prove Aaron’s guilt. His complicated and unfulfilling relationships with Barbara and Carolyn inform his relationship with Bea, whom he believes has finally broken his cycle of unhappiness. The narrative structure of the two novels is similar, following Rusty’s perspective in the lead-up to a trial and in the courtroom.

Presumed Innocent was first adapted into a 1990 film starring Harrison Ford as Rusty Sabich and Raul Julia as Sandy Stern. The novel was adapted again into the 2024 Apple TV miniseries starring Jake Gylenhaal as Rusty.

Rusty appears again in the sequel, Innocent (2010), as the now 60-year-old Chief Judge for the Court of Appeals. Rusty wakes to find his wife, Barbara, dead, but he doesn’t notify his son or the police for 24 hours. Molto, the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney, conducts a quiet investigation and charges Rusty with murder on circumstantial evidence. In flashbacks, the narrative shows Rusty’s attempts to keep his family together after his wife’s bipolar diagnosis, as her volatile moods and paranoia increase. Rusty has another affair to deal with his isolation. Rusty is found guilty of Barbara’s murder and sent to Kindle County prison, but Stern gets Rusty freed after two months, proving that Barbara’s death was an overdose. 

In Presumed Guilty, Rusty is still reeling from his ordeal in prison, and several characters still suspect that he got away with his wife’s murder. Bea leverages Rusty’s experience with being wrongly accused to persuade him to become Aaron’s defense lawyer, so the same experience doesn’t befall her son. Rusty’s success in defending Aaron reignites his belief in the justice system, and by the end of the text, he feels healed enough to return home to Kindle County.