A tricky task faces Scott Turow and "Presumed Guilty," his 38-years-later sequel to "Presumed Innocent": Accommodate last year's "Presumed Innocent" TV series or ignore it?

The Apple TV+ show starred Jake Gyllenhaal as attorney Rusty Sabich, charged with the murder of a colleague with whom he'd been having an affair. As he fights to prove his innocence, evidence mounts against him and, in the end, the killer turns out to be shockingly close to home. The series changed the book's culprit, though, and updated the story to the present. (The 1990 Harrison Ford film kept the original killer.)

"Guilty" was in the works before the Gyllenhaal series, but the latter complicates matters, since many people now think of Sabich as a 2020s guy who is in his 40s but, if the books were to observe real time, he's in his 70s. That's where Turow keeps him, ignoring the Apple changes and moving him slightly north from his previous suburban Chicago home.

Sabich is still dealing with the possibility that he lives in a house with a killer in "Presumed Guilty." This time, it's his stepson Aaron. He returns, alone and days late, from camping in Wisconsin with his estranged girlfriend and then disappears when her corpse is discovered.

Turow also is an attorney (he did the lawyer-turned-bestselling-author thing two years before John Grisham). His experience shows in the courtroom scenes that effortlessly incorporate tricky legal matters and breathtaking reversals, exactly like "Law and Order" reruns do. "Presumed Guilty" has a lot to do with the specifics of a murder trial — particularly the decision whether to have Aaron testify on his own behalf — and Turow makes all of that convincing and gripping.

The book's personal dynamics also are intriguing. When Sabich is chosen to represent his son (an outrageous idea that's set up believably) and begins to put together a case, it becomes clear that the killer is someone he knows — to the extent that you may find yourself wishing he'd examine if there's something about him that attracts homicidal pals. He mentions a couple of times that he has been in therapy, but it would take a lot of couch time to figure out why he (spoiler alert, I guess) was married to one murderer in "Presumed Innocent" and may be engaged to another in "Guilty."

Presumed Guilty

If some of that strains readers' credulity, Turow sucks them back in with smart, insider information, like the fraught relationship between the small-town prosecutor of Aaron's case and the judge, who can't stand the prosecutor but also needs him on her side if she wants her career to advance.

Where Turow is less successful, surprisingly, is something you'd think would be second nature: Sabich's voice. Murders aside, there's always been an autobiographical element to Sabich, who's the same age as Turow and has done similar work. But you gotta hope Turow isn't the stiff, weirdly formal prig that Sabich seems to be. This scene of would-be lust, for instance, is about as sexy as a writ of certiorari: "Our lovemaking is more prolonged and passionate than it has been in a while, a welcome reminder of our bond amid the current turmoil."

Whenever things get heated, the book's tone feels off. But that's not all that often, and I'd still be happy to have Sabich back for another adventure, hopefully involving a murderer who doesn't live with him. And Turow needn't fret about whether he'll have to accommodate the TV show; it has been renewed for another season but will, apparently, deal with a whole new set of characters.

Presumed Guilty

By: Scott Turow.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 544 pages, $30.