Most Popular Books by Scott Turow

NOW AN APPLE ORIGINAL SERIES FROM APPLE TV STARRING JAKE GYLLENHAAL From #1 New York Times bestselling author and hailed as the most suspenseful and compelling novel in decades, this story brings to life our worst nightmare: that of an ordinary citizen facing conviction for the most terrible of all crimes. Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case--the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused... and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be PRESUMED INNOCENT. It's the stunning portrayal of one man's all-too-human, all-consuming fatal attraction for a passionate woman who is not his wife, and the story of how his obsession puts everything he loves and values on trial--including his own life. It's a book that lays bare a shocking world of betrayal and murder, as well as the hidden depths of the human heart. And it will hold you and haunt you...long after you have reached its shattering conclusion.

One L, Scott Turow's journal of his first year at law school and a best-seller when it was first published in 1977, has gone on to become a virtual bible for prospective law students. Not only does it introduce with remarkable clarity the ideas and issues that are the stuff of legal education; it brings alive the anxiety and competiveness--with others and, even more, with oneself--that set the tone in this crucible of character building. Each September, a new crop of students enter Harvard Law School to begin an intense, often grueling, sometimes harrowing year of introduction to the law. Turow's group of One Ls are fresh, bright, ambitious, and more than a little daunting. Even more impressive are the faculty. Will the One Ls survive? Will they excel? Will they make the Law Review, the outward and visible sign of success in this ultra-conservative microcosm? With remarkable insight into both his fellows and himself, Turow leads us through the ups and downs, the small triumphs and tragedies of the year, in an absorbing and thought-provoking narrative that teaches the reader not only about law school and the law but about the human beings who make them what they are. In the new afterword for this edition of One L, the author looks back on law school from the perspective of ten years' work as a lawyer and offers some suggestions for reforming legal education.

From bestselling author Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes comes a breathtaking story of courage, betrayal, passion, and the mystery of a father's hidden war Stewart Dubinsky knew his father had served in World War II. And he'd been told how David Dubin (as his father had Americanized the name that Stewart later reclaimed) had rescued Stewart's mother from the horror of the Balingen concentration camp. But when he discovers, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancée, and learns of his father's court-martial and imprisonment, he is plunged into the mystery of his family's secret history and driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man who'd always refused to talk about his war. As he pieces together his father's past through military archives, letters, and, finally, notes from a memoir his father wrote while in prison, secretly preserved by the officer who defended him, Stewart starts to assemble a dramatic and baffling chain of events. He learns how Dubin, a JAG lawyer attached to Patton's Third Army and desperate for combat experience, got more than he bargained for when he was ordered to arrest Robert Martin, a wayward OSS officer who, despite his spectacular bravery with the French Resistance, appeared to be acting on orders other than his commanders'. In pursuit of Martin, Dubin and his sergeant are parachuted into Bastogne just as the Battle of the Bulge reaches its apex. Pressed into the leadership of a desperately depleted rifle company, the men are forced to abandon their quest for Martin and his fiery, maddeningly elusive comrade, Gita, as they fight for their lives through carnage and chaos the likes of which Dubin could never have imagined. In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart gains a closer understanding of his past, of his father's character, and of the brutal nature of war itself.

Turow's brilliant defense attorney from Presumed Innocent returns to face a shattering emotional crisis in his own family.

In Kindle County, a talented lawyer and $5.6 million have suddenly disappeared, and Mack Malloy is hot on the trail.

The #1 New York Times -bestselling legal thriller writer delivers "the most convincing, levelheaded analysis of [the death penalty] I have encountered" ( The Washington Post ). Scott Turow is known to millions as the author of peerless novels about the troubling regions of experience where law and reality intersect. In "real life," as a respected criminal lawyer, he has been involved with the death penalty for more than a decade, including successfully representing two different men convicted in death-penalty prosecutions. In this vivid account of how his views on the death penalty have evolved, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his recent service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office. Along the way, he provides a brief history of America's ambivalent relationship with the ultimate punishment, analyzes the potent reasons for and against it, including the role of the victims' survivors, and tells the powerful stories behind the statistics, as he moves from the Governor's Mansion to Illinois' state-of-the art "super-max" prison and the execution chamber. Ultimate Punishment—this gripping, clear-sighted, necessary examination of the principles, the personalities, and the politics of a fundamental dilemma of our democracy—has all the drama and intellectual substance of Turow's celebrated fiction. "[ Ultimate Punishment ] deserves a huge audience. The writing is . . . elegant, the thinking deep, the insider experiences on which he bases his arguments irrefutable." — San Francisco Chronicle "Thought-provoking, heart-wrenching, and deserving of a close read." — The Denver Post

State Senator Paul Giannis is a candidate for Mayor of Kindle County. His identical twin brother Cass is newly released from prison, 25 years after pleading guilty to the murder of his girlfriend, Dita Kronon. When Evon Miller, an ex-FBI agent who is the head of security for the Kronon family business, and private investigator Tim Brodie begin a re-investigation of Dita's death, a complex web of murder, sex, and betrayal-as only Scott Turow could weave-dramatically unfolds...

A crooked lawyer joins forces with an F.B.I. agent who has secrets of her own.

A drive-by shooting of an aging white woman at a gang-plagued Kindle County housing project sets in motion Scott Turow's intensely absorbing novel, The Laws of our Fathers. With its riveting suspense and indelibly drawn characters, this novel shows why Turow is not only the master of the modern legal thriller but also one of America's most engaging and satisfying novelists.

Publisher Description

A super-charged, exquisitely suspenseful novel about a vicious triple murder and the man condemned to die for it Rommy "Squirrel" Gandolph is a Yellow Man, an inmate on death row for a 1991 triple murder in Kindle County. His slow progress toward certain execution is nearing completion when Arthur Raven, a corporate lawyer who is Rommy's reluctant court-appointed representative, receives word that another inmate may have new evidence that will exonerate Gandolph. Arthur's opponent in the case is Muriel Wynn, Kindle County's formidable chief deputy prosecuting attorney, who is considering a run for her boss's job. Muriel and Larry Starczek, the original detective on the case, don't want to see Rommy escape a fate they long ago determined he deserved, for a host of reasons. Further complicating the situation is the fact that Gillian Sullivan, the judge who originally found Rommy guilty, is only recently out of prison herself, having served time for taking bribes. Scott Turow's Reversible Errors compelling, multi-dimensional characters take the reader into Kindle County's parallel yet intersecting worlds of police and small-time crooks, airline executives and sophisticated scammers--and lawyers of all stripes. No other writer offers such a convincing true-to-life picture of how the law and life interact, or such a profound understanding of what is at stake--personally, professionally, and morally--when the state holds the power to end a man's life.

Two formidable men collide in this "first-class legal thriller" and New York Times bestseller about a celebrated criminal defense lawyer and the prosecution of his lifelong friend -- a doctor accused of murder (David Baldacci). At eighty-five years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, is on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial. In a case that will be the defining coda to both men's accomplished lives, Stern probes beneath the surface of his friend's dazzling veneer as a distinguished cancer researcher. As the trial progresses, he will question everything he thought he knew about his friend. Despite Pafko's many failings, is he innocent of the terrible charges laid against him? How far will Stern go to save his friend, and -- no matter the trial's outcome -- will he ever know the truth? Stern's duty to defend his client and his belief in the power of the judicial system both face a final, terrible test in the courtroom, where the evidence and reality are sometimes worlds apart. Full of the deep insights into the spaces where the fragility of human nature and the justice system collide, Scott Turow's The Last Trial is a masterful legal thriller that unfolds in page-turning suspense -- and questions how we measure a life.

'A superb, sexy sequel to Presumed Innocent' Sunday Times 'A legend of suspense fiction' Steve Cavanagh 'The master of the courtroom drama' Daniel Silva 'A writer with few peers in any genre' David Baldacci Daily Mail Books to Watch 2025 The Times Best Thrillers of 2025 So Far In a sequel to Presumed Innocent, the book that redefined the legal thriller, judge and lawyer Rusty Sabich returns to the courtroom to defend his step-son against a racially-charged murder indictment as the boy's life – and perhaps Rusty's last chance at happiness – hang in the balance. 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. 5* READER REVIEWS 'Absolutely brilliant' 'Scott Turow at his very best' 'A great legal thriller ... Kept me riveted' 'Fantastic. It will draw you in from the first page' 'Scott Turow is the master of the legal, court room drama' 'A masterpiece - one of the best legal thrillers I have read' 'This is what you call a proper legal thriller'

A Times, Express and Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent returns with a riveting legal thriller in which a reckless private detective is embroiled in a fraught police scandal Lucia Gomez is a female police chief in a man's world and she's walked a fine line to succeed at the top. Now a trio of police officers in Kindle County have accused her of soliciting sex for promotions and she's in deep. Rik Dudek is an attorney and old friend of Lucia's. He's the only one she can trust, but he's never had a headline criminal case. This ugly smear campaign is already breaking the internet and will be his biggest challenge yet. Clarice 'Pinky' Granum is a fearless PI who plays by her own rules. Her 4-D imagination is her biggest asset when it comes to digging up dirt for Rik but not all locks are best picked. It's cops against cops in this hive of lies. And it will take more than honeyed words from the defence to change the punchline and save the Chief from her own cell.