Scott Turow redefined the legal thriller by portraying the law as a means of pressure rather than principle.
The former US trial lawyer-turned author, known for his blockbuster 1987 debut Presumed Innocent, which spawned a trilogy and has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, explains that the American justice system, with its narrow burden of proof, has a way of pushing people on both sides of the courtroom to their limits.
“I view it as a system of pressure,” he tells The National ahead of his appearance at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, which begins on Wednesday. “It presses characters, forces them into decisions and accelerates events. Against that pressure, you have the emotional lives of the people involved and that tension is what interests me.”
It sounds almost Shakespearean, but when Turow, 76, emerged, the legal novel was rarely interested in that
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