Turow, Scott (1949-…), is an American author known for his best-selling suspense novels with a legal background. Turow was an assistant United States attorney in Chicago from 1978 to 1986, when he went into private practice with a Chicago law firm. He uses his knowledge about lawyers and the U.S. legal system to give his stories their authentic quality.
Turow gained fame with his first novel, Presumed Innocent (1987). The mystery story centers on a deputy prosecutor who finds himself on trial for the murder of a colleague. In a sequel, Innocent (2010), the deputy prosecutor has become a judge and is again tried for murder. Turow’s other suspense novels with a legal background include Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993), Personal Injuries (1999), Reversible Errors (2002), Limitations (2006), Testimony (2017), The Last Trial (2020), and Suspect (2022). Several of Turow’s novels are set in fictional Kindle County in Illinois.
Turow was born in Chicago on April 12, 1949. He received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1978. His first book was One L: An Inside Account of Life in the First Year at Harvard Law School (1977). The book is considered a classic in its insider’s view of the pressures on law students. Turow also wrote the nonfiction book Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty (2003).
