The Holdout by Graham Moore
Genre: Legal thriller
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: February 18, 2020
About The Holdout:
One juror changed the verdict. What if she was wrong? From the Academy Award–winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and bestselling author of The Last Days of Night. . . .
It’s the most sensational case of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and her teacher, Bobby Nock, a twenty-five-year-old African American man, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into America’s most pressing preoccupations: race, class, sex, law enforcement, and the lurid sins of the rich and famous. 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, convinced of Nock’s innocence, persuades the rest of the jurors to return the verdict of not guilty, a controversial decision that will change all their lives forever.
Flash forward ten years. A true-crime docuseries reassembles the jury, with particular focus on Maya, now a defense attorney herself. When Rick, one of the jurors, is found dead in Maya’s hotel room, all evidence points to her as the killer. Now, she must prove her own innocence—by getting to the bottom of a case that is far from closed.
As the present-day murder investigation weaves together with the story of what really happened during their deliberation, told by each of the jurors in turn, the secrets they have all been keeping threaten to come out—with drastic consequences for all involved.
My thoughts
Thanks to Random House Publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for a chance to join this book tour!
Whew. What a ride. And I enjoyed every minute of it!
Here’s a few reasons why:
1. Multiple points of view
The book uses a dual timeline. Maya narrates the present day sections, while she and the other jurors take turns narrating the events of the trial.
I enjoyed reading the different points of view. Each of the jurors has a distinct personality and a unique way of looking at the world. Between the multiple timelines and the many points of view, the story could’ve been a confusing mess, with no unifying thread or focal point. Yet Moore makes it work.
And what’s more, it works to serve the story. He’s not simply throwing in each juror’s thoughts for no reason. We need to know their thought processes to know two things.
First, why they ultimately sided with Maya during the trial and found Bobby Nock “not guilty.”
Second, what motivates them at a later point in the novel.
It also effectively shows that Maya’s not the only person who had a motivation to kill Rick.
Maya’s investigation takes her to some strange places. An artists’ colony where drugs and art mingle freely. A town of convicted sex offenders. The office of the billionaire whose daughter has disappeared. Moore does a great job of creating these mini-worlds to feel real. He has a beautiful way with words, and has obviously honed his craft for many years.
2. Courtroom dynamics
I really enjoyed the dynamics of this courtroom drama. Not being a lawyer, I can’t tell if the courtroom scenes are realistic or not. To me, they felt real. Because of that, I suspended disbelief when certain things became implausible.
Moore has some fascinating insights into the legal process, its onlookers (media, the public), and its participants, particularly how the psychology of the jurors’ relationships influences cases. During drawn-out cases, such as Bobby Nock’s trial, the jurors form a special bond with one another.
Yet this bond isn’t all positive. Alliances are made, rivalries develop, personalities clash. Without a shared history, the jurors form opinions of one another (and how they will vote!) based on obvious details like gender, race, or ethnicity. It’s rather like And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie, minus the actual locked room aspect. (Moore pays homage to more than one Christie classic in his novel.)
3. Characterization
As characters went, I found most of them believable.
They are fascinating people apart from the trial. A few I’d love to have coffee with, a few I’d love to shake some sense into, and a few I’d avoid. Yasmine cracked me up. Lila made me want to hug her. I cheered for Kathy as she grew self-confidence, and Fran as she dealt with her grief by helping another juror, and wanted to kick Peter where it hurts–hard.
All of them have secrets–some horrifying, others embarrassing–and all of them struggle with whether their original verdict was or was not “just.”
But what does a “just” verdict look like, The Holdout begs us to consider. Is it when the whole truth is put into the open? What if that truth does more harm than good? What if the truth is, as Maya puts it, a lousy defense?
Ultimately, this is a terrific, well-paced thriller. I recommend it to everyone who loves legal thrillers.
About Graham Moore
Graham is a New York Times bestselling novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. His screenplay for THE IMITATION GAME won the Academy Award and WGA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2015 and was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe.
His novels, THE LAST DAYS OF NIGHT (2016) and THE SHERLOCKIAN (2010), were published in 24 countries and translated into 19 languages. THE LAST DAYS OF NIGHT was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Graham lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Caitlin, and their dog, Janet.
