That previous novel left Sabich in a dark place, and Turow felt compelled to leave the character on a better note.

It left him in such a sad and shattered state that I felt I owed him more - this character whose career has been synonymous with my own.

Sabich gets pulled back into the courtroom, however, when the son of Bea becomes embroiled in a murder case.

Tom Nolan of The Wall Street Journal described Presumed Guilty as a "swift narrative full of technical detail, behavioral scrutiny and quick turns of plot".

[3] Writing for Slate, Laura Miller praised Turow's deft portrayal of drama inside the courtroom; however, she found the novel less engrossing than the two previous installments in the series, writing: "For all the reliable pleasures of Turow’s courtroom drama, his hero has shed the complications that once led him to the dock and, with them, everything that made him interesting".