My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads rating: 4.02 with 1,921 ratings (as of 2/24/2020)

In this twisty tale from Moore (The Sherlockian), the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game, young juror Maya Seale is convinced that African American high school teacher Bobby Nock is innocent of killing the wealthy white female student with whom he appears to have been involved and persuades her fellow jurors likewise. Ten years later, a true-crime docuseries reassembles the jurors, and Maya, now a defense attorney, must prove her own innocence when one of them is found dead in Maya’s room.…Synopsis from Goodreads

200 Word Review

‏I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Even after a few years, working with jurors is fascinating to me. Each jury uses the jury room differently. When I read the description of Graham Moore’s The Holdout, I knew what I would read next. Having recently finished one of his earlier books, The Sherlockian, I was even more eager to read this. As with The Sherlockian, The Holdout does not disappoint.

Juror 272, aka Maya Seale, was the lone holdout. She does the near-impossible task of converting the other jurors to her way of thinking and the defendant is found not guilty. Unfortunately, the trial of the jury has just begun.

Moore is able to accurately capture jury service and the deliberation process. His writing style makes the story move quickly. Some of the actions of the characters require a suspension of disbelief but it does not take away from the story.

I do not want to give away anything so it is hard to say anything about specific parts of the book. I will say I thoroughly enjoyed chapter 23! It was creative and I was pleasantly surprised how the issue was handled.

Graham Moore is on my “authors to read as soon as they publish” list.

This review was published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble on 2/25/20. When available, the review will be published on Scribd.com and, using Overdrive, will be rated in 9 libraries.

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Legal thriller
Print Length: 336 pages
ISBN: 039959177X (ISBN 13: 9780399591778)
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: February 18th, 2020

Purchase at Amazon *** Barnes and Noble