Presumed Innocent (1987)

Rusty Sabich moves from prosecutor to accused when a colleague with whom he had an affair is murdered. Turow's legal suspense gives personal loyalty, professional ambition and the burden of proof room to work against one another. Its value here extends beyond courtroom tactics: the narrator's access to the law gives no automatic assurance about his account of himself. Read for the distance between an argument that succeeds and a life that has been honestly examined.