The Holdout

Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and the case becomes the most sensational of the decade. Her teacher, Bobby Nock, is the prime suspect after illicit text messages between them come to light and Jessica's blood is found in his car. The trial draws in America's biggest preoccupations: race, class, sex, law enforcement and the lurid sins of the rich and famous.

The prosecution's case looks open and shut, and a quick conviction seems all but certain. But Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, is convinced that Nock is innocent. She persuades the other jurors to return a not guilty verdict, a controversial decision that changes all of their lives.

Ten years later, a true-crime docuseries brings the jurors back together, with a particular focus on Maya, who is now a defense attorney herself. When one of the jurors is found dead in Maya's hotel room, all the evidence points to her. To clear her name, she must get to the bottom of a case that is far from closed.

The present-day murder investigation is interwoven with an account of what really happened during the deliberations, told by each juror in turn, while the secrets they have all kept threaten to come out. The book is by the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, who also wrote The Last Days of Night.