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Presumed Guilty By Scott Turow Read By Grover Gardner

Listen to Scott Turow’s new “unputdownable” courtroom drama from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Presumed Innocent, the phenomenon that redefined the legal thriller and is the basis for Apple TV+’s most-watched drama series ever (Kristin Hannah, #1 NYT bestselling author). “No one does it better.”―David Baldacci, #1 NYT Bestselling Author “The truth is, Turow is just better at this than the rest of us.”―Greg Iles, #1 NYT Bestselling Author “This is manna for legal-thriller fans."―Booklist, starred review “This easily ranks among Turow’s best."―Publishers Weekly, starred review “An absorbing and entertaining read.” ―Kirkus 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.

Duration:: 4m
Broadcast on:: 14 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

Aaron has disappeared. It has happened before, and despite my recent hopes, it will probably happen again. Everybody realizes that, except his mother. "Do you think he's okay?" asks B. "13 months ago is a gift of sorts for my 75th birthday. Be agreed to marry me, although she's been reluctant since then to set a date." Late last night, while we were sleeping, a hellacious storm blew in from the north. The concussive power of the thunder doubled as it ricocheted off Mirror Lake on who shore we live. After a boom, like an artillery round rattled our windows, I felt be rise, and a few minutes later tumble back into bed with the cheerless wait that let me know that Aaron was not home. Up for the morning, she's just checked again, hope against hope, with the same result. "Of course," I answer about Aaron, doing my best to look convincing, "you know him. He's probably by himself out in the woods. But how did he get there?" Now that she asks, this is a troubling question. Since Aaron's felony conviction a year and a half ago, after he was arrested with enough cocaine and meth to mean real trouble, his driver's license has been suspended. More important, the terms of the strict probation he agreed to in order to get out of the Skajian County Jail after four months there require him to live in our house and stay in close touch with us. Aaron, we both know, could teach classes at the university level in how to get in your own way. But yet, this is the first time since he moved in that he is gone dark as he likes to put it, turning off his phone and voicemail, relieving himself of what he often finds the most onerous responsibility of civilization, the obligation to communicate. I ask B whether her ex is heard from their son, and she says she hasn't tried Lloyd yet. She did speak to her own father, but Joe, who was close to Aaron, claimed to have no idea concerning his grandson's whereabouts. "Do you believe him?" I ask. And B's face is mobile, for an instant, with her customary skepticism of her father. "Probably," she says, "for a second we ponder one another in silence until she asks, 'We don't have to call the judge yet, do we?' B, as she knows, is euphemistic. The sentencing judge, Morton Sams, thought that I as a former judge myself and someone who still needs his license to practice law, would understand my duty to the court if Aaron steps out of line. "Not yet," I tell her, "it's one night, it could be anything. Maybe whoever's car he was in broke down. He'll turn up soon." And now, I would have said that Aaron has done well. He attends meetings faithfully, avoids the drug-addled crew who resembled the undead that he was living with before his arrest, and even found a job he loved. He was working for Galor, a party planner in the swanky summer enclave of Como Stop nearby, doing all manner of commercial art, everything from banners to designing invitations. With the annual retreat of the seasonal residence, he was unexpectedly laid off last week. The support groups, B, attends, emphasize how precarious sobriety is for someone like Aaron who is new to it. Now the unspoken probability that he is relapsed, and the dark complications that would invite, including the risk of a significant prison sentence, has turned his mother's fabulous samurai's into lakes of misery. At these moments, I'm impressed by the occasional cruelty of motherhood with its consuming anxieties that seem to have no expiration date. B often admits that until she and Lloyd adopted Aaron at birth, she regarded herself as laid back. Instead, her worries multiplied at once, as people she would never have suspected drew back at the sight of an infant in her arms, who was, by some uncertain proportion, black.