Review of "The Holdout: A Novel of Suspense" by Graham Moore

In 2009, 25-year-old high school music teacher Bobby Nock was tried for the murder of his 15-year-old student Jessica Silver.



When Jessica - the daughter of billionaire Lou Silver - disappeared, the police found sexy text messages between herself and Nock and found traces of Jessica's blood in Nock's car.



The fact that Nock was black and Jessica was white exacerbated matters, and the teacher was quickly arrested and prosecuted.

Maya Seale was one of a diverse bag of jurors at Nock's trial, and though the evidence against the teacher was strong, Maya had reasonable doubt.



Thus, though the eleven other jurors wanted to vote guilty, Maya turned them one by one.....and Nock got a not guilty verdict. Nock's acquittal resulted in vicious backlash from the public.



The fallout caused many jurors to regret their decision to let Nock off. The most sorry of all was an African American juror named Rick Leonard, who wrote a scathing book that blamed Maya for the reviled verdict.



Ten years later Maya, who believes "it's better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent be wrongly punished" is a criminal defense attorney who'd prefer to hear nothing more about Bobby Nock. 

Unfortunately Maya is out of luck because the producers of a podcast called 'Murder Town' are making an 8-hour docuseries about Nock, to be aired on Netflix.



The producers ask the original jurors to cooperate with the show, and Maya - who's still being excoriated by the public - refuses. However Rick Leonard claims that he's found definitive proof of Nock's guilt, which he'll reveal when he's interviewed for the podcast. Maya can't resist hearing this 'proof', and reluctantly agrees to participate in the program.

The jurors are assembled at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, where they were sequestered during the trial, and are even given their old rooms. The attendees meet for an ice breaker on the evening before the interviews, and talk about the trial and the podcast.



Later that night a juror is found dead in Maya's room. In the ultimate ironic twist, Maya is arrested for the juror's murder.

The book is a dual mystery in which two cases are highlighted: the killing of Jessica Silver and the murder of the juror. Maya, who's out on bail, aims to prove she's innocent. Hence she noses around against the explicit instructions of her defense attorney, Craig Richards, who tells her to lay low.



In fact Craig wants Maya to claim she killed Rick in self-defense - even if she's completely innocent - to ensure she doesn't go to prison. (Apparently Craig doesn't care if the 'real killer' is caught.)

The murder trial of Bobby Nock has a whiff of racism and classism, which continues later, when Nock is convicted of disseminating child pornography. As a result Nock has to register as a sex offender, which means that he'll be persecuted by the media forever.

The book is told from the rotating points of view of Maya and other jurors, so we know what people were thinking and doing during and after Nock's trial, and what they're up to at the present time. There are some surprising revelations and the strong suggestion that lawyers don't care who's innocent or guilty....they just want to win.

I'd recommend this novel to readers who enjoy mysteries and legal thrillers.



Thanks to Netgalley, Graham Moore, and Random House for a copy of the book. 

Rating: 3.5 stars