The Holdout

Book 58 of my 2020 Reading Challenge

read from August 25 - September 7

The Holdout

by Graham Moore

Summary (via the book jacket)

published 2020

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, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into American'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 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 Opinion

4 stars

This book had the right amount of tension.  I was interested and wanted to continue reading but it wasn't so anxiety-inducing that I wanted to skip ahead and relieve the pressure.  The book was more about the psychology of people living with the decisions they made, as well as the aftermath (returning a "not guilty" verdict doesn't mean the defendant can return to a "normal" life when the court of public opinion disagrees) and I thought that was an unique take.    

Changing viewpoints both between the jurors and also between 2009 and 2019 sounds like it could be confusing but it was handled well and really added to the story.  The different viewpoints in addition to having Maya be a defense attorney removed some of the issues mysteries can sometimes run into (why would someone tell her that?  How did she have access to those files?)...I'm not saying it was completely plausible but it was definitely more believable because of these points.

I didn't see the ending coming.   There is payoff with answers on both cases but the author did a good job of keeping with the theme of the book and leaving a little ambiguity.

Quote from the Book

"...if Maya had internalized one truth from the doubt surrounding Jessica Silver's death, it was that no one was safe from their fellow citizens. Anyone could be killed; anyone could be suspected. Anyone could find themselves at the end of a long line of bad decisions and feel they had no other option but to do something terrible."