My turn on the tour today for The Holdout by Graham Moore. I’d like to thank Orion and Tracy Fenton for inviting me to take part. Before I give you my review, here’s the blurb.

 

The Blurb

One juror changed the verdict. What if she was wrong?

‘Ten years ago we made a decision together…’

Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar fortune, vanishes on her way home from school. Her teacher, Bobby Nock, is the prime suspect. It’s an open and shut case for the prosecution, and a quick conviction seems all but guaranteed.

Until Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, persuades the rest of the jurors to vote not guilty: a controversial decision that will change all of their lives forever.

Ten years later, one of the jurors is found dead, and Maya is the prime suspect.

The real killer could be any of the other ten jurors. Is Maya being forced to pay the price for her decision all those years ago?

My Review

I’ve been called for jury service twice and I couldn’t do it either time. The first time I was 18 and about to take my A-Levels. The second time I was 37 weeks pregnant. No one wanted to risk that one! I have been a witness though and it was one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to do. I was allowed to visit the courtroom beforehand and was given some advice – when you answer a question, direct your answer to the jury. They are the most important people in the room.

The Holdout is set in California so the justice system is a little different from the UK. But the idea of a jury – twelve people judging the suspect – remains the same. I’ve often wondered how jurors cope with horrible cases, especially murder. We start to get an idea of the toll it takes in The Holdout.

Maya Seale is a high-flying defence lawyer. Her jury service experience inspired her to enter the law. Others were not so fortunate and lost their jobs because of that time. Another, Rick Leonard, became so obsessed by the case, he dedicated ten years of his life searching for the truth. Now, a TV programme wants to do a reunion with the jurors from one of the most controversial trials ever. An open-and-shut case against Bobby Nock. Abundantly clear to all of America that he was guilty. The victim’s body was never found but the evidence against him was overwhelming. Only Maya thought he was innocent. And one by one, she talked the others round. But Rick has new evidence that he plans to share on the TV programme. However, before he has his moment of glory, Rick is found dead in Maya’s room. And now, she has to defend herself.

The story switches between Now with Maya and Then with the other jurors. It might be my fault for mostly reading this late at night, but I didn’t always find it easy to keep up with all the characters. There are ten other jurors to look at as well as the victim’s family. Plus Bobby Nock himself. So you do have to stay on your toes with this book.

This novel has a cinematic feel to it which isn’t surprising as Graham Moore is a scriptwriter and wrote the brilliant The Imitation Game. I’d love to see this as a film or TV series. With tense courtroom scenes and Maya’s charisma, it would work very well on screen.

There are two questions that need answering in this story – who killed Rick Leonard and who killed Jessica Silver? And both of these threads are utterly compelling. We get to see both sides of the justice system in this story with Bobby Nock’s past trial and Maya trying to defend herself in the present day. And I can honestly say I did not guess the outcome of either case!

Although this is primarily a story, it does look at issues such as race bias in trials (especially murder), how best to deal with sex offenders after release and domestic abuse. This isn’t done in a preachy way but is subtly threaded throughout the narrative.

I think The Holdout is meant to be a standalone but I would happily read more about Maya Seale, kick-ass defence lawyer. A tense and compelling read.

You can buy the book here.

 

About the Author

Graham Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Days of Night and The Sherlockian, and the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, which also won a Writers Guild of America Award for best adapted screenplay and was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. Moore was born in Chicago, received a BA in religious history from Columbia University in 2003, and now lives in Los Angeles.