Review - The Holdout by Graham Moore

The Holdout by Graham Moore

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Release date: 20 February 2020

Back cover 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?

Maya Seale is reluctant to re-visit an infamous murder trial on which she was a juror. That was ten years ago and she has had to live with her decision ever since. For she was the one who convinced her fellow jurors that Bobby Nock was innocent.

Convicted and on trial for the kidnap and murder of schoolgirl Jessica Silver, Bobby Nock's defence had failed to sway the majority of the jury. who were firmly on the side of the prosecution and it's largely circumstantial evidence.

Maya's closest ally during that time was fellow juror, Rick, and although he apparently turned on her after the trial in favour of 'seeking justice' for Jessica Silver and published a book condemning himself and other jurors for making the decision they did, Maya still trusts him inherently.

He is the reason that she says 'Yes' to a reunion of the jurors for a television documentary ten years on from the original verdict and he is the reason that she herself is the subject of a murder investigation. After an argument in her hotel room, Maya storms out leaving Rick alone, and comes back to find him dead, assumed murdered with herself as the prime suspect.

As she fights to clear her own name, she discovers things about her fellow jurors and the original trial, that could have changed everything back then. 

But is that knowledge enough to save either her or Bobby now?

The Holdout is available now from 20 February.
You can pre-order it now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.