Whether the victim is Carolyn, found bound and apparently raped, or Rusty himself, accused of her murder, the victim is portrayed as an active participant in the circumstances leading to the crime. No clear line can be drawn; there are no pure victims, no pure criminals, just the purity of emotion drawn from shaken people.

And passion, once directed only toward the attainment of certain specific objectives--a career, a child, a lover--is now dispersed, but not diminished. Rusty is obsessed with Carolyn, with the professional details of his case, with his son, with the fear that the intensity of his obsessions may never abate:

And now, dear Good, I think, dear God in whom I do not believe, It pray to you to stop this, for I am deathly frightened. Dear God, I smell my fear, with an odor as distinct as ozone on the air after a lightning flash. I feel fear so palpably it has a color, an oozing fiery red, and I feel it pitifully in my bones, which ache....Dear God, dear God, I am in agony and fear, and whatever I may have done to make you bring this down upon me, release me, please, I pray, release me. Release me. Dear God in whom I do not believe, dear God, let me go free.

Turow does not release the reader from the challenge proferred. This challenge is not to solve a crime, but to recognize that all people can play multiple roles--victim, aggressor, lover, thinker--without paradox.

Turow's book is laced fairly liberally with sex and seaminess. All the better. There's no denying that Presumed Innocent is a good read, in the popular sense of the term. In this case, it's an intelligent and fascinating read as well.

All involved must leave the courtroom with an expanded view of base human motivation and emotional capacity.