The Holdout

In 2009, Maya Seale is the one juror in a Los Angeles murder trial who refuses to vote guilty. The defendant is Bobby Nock, a young teacher accused of killing Jessica Silver, his 15-year-old student. Jessica's body was never found. Maya argues the other eleven around, and Bobby walks free.

Ten years on, the jurors are reunited for a true-crime docuseries. Rick Leonard, one of the twelve, pushes for it. He has spent years sure the verdict was wrong and says he has new evidence.

He never gets to present it. Police find his body in Maya's hotel room. She now works as a criminal defense attorney, and she is the prime suspect. To clear herself she has to learn what happened to Rick, and what became of Jessica.

The book is a legal thriller told in two strands. One follows the present-day investigation. The other returns to the deliberation room through the jurors' own accounts, where each person's certainty gets tested and old secrets come out. Justice, media attention and race run through both.

The question underneath is whether Maya's holdout saved an innocent man or freed a killer.