Leftbanker's Reviews > Presumed Innocent

** spoiler alert ** I read this when it came out in 1987 which is 47 years ago. Just doing the math to remind myself how fucking old I am. This came out back when people still read quite a lot, a lot more than today, I think. At least I remember that people talked about books more, at least in my circle of friends at that time. I remember that everyone was reading this book. It was passed around, or more accurately, people shoved it in other people’s faces demanding that they read it.

This was one of the first legal thrillers I remember reading and I believe it redefined the genre from the Perry Mason school of legal thrillers, if you could call them thrillers.

This originality is one of the things that pushed me to five stars. There were also some twists that really took me off-guard. The judge dismissing the case after the prosecution rested. I’d never seen that before or since and didn’t even know that was a thing. Maybe it ain’t a thing. I also like how his cop buddy pulled his nuts out of the fire a couple times.

The twist about the wife doing it seemed obvious to me, even way back then, and it seemed stupid that the prosecution didn’t even consider this angle.

My recent interest in the book is due to the recent series being released now which I have to say that I’m not digging too much. The 1990 film by Alan J. Pakula did a great job of adapting the book and I even liked Harrison Ford who shined among a cast of great actors like Raul Julia, Brian Dennehy, and Paul Winfield, among others.