Ten years ago the trial rocked the country. A black teacher was on trial for murdering his white teenage student, the daughter of a prominent real estate developer in LA. During the trial text messages hinted at an inappropriate relationship between the teacher and student.
When the jury got together, all but one juror, Maya, were ready to convict. Little by little, after weeks of deliberation and argument, she wore them down with her assessments and they voted to acquit the defendant. The verdict—and their participation in the jury—changes their lives immeasurably.
"You ever think about all the fucked-up shit we end up doing because we tell ourselves we're helping?"
Now, 10 years later, a true-crime documentary is focused on the trial and brings the jury together, in the same hotel where they were once sequestered. One juror is purported to have “explosive” new evidence. And then another murder occurs, which sets off a high-stakes race to find the truth, before someone else dies.
I really enjoyed this book. It switches between past and present, and looks at each of the jurors and how they came to their decision to acquit, as well as whatever secrets they might have been hiding. There were lots of twists and turns in the plot, and while I had some suspicions about how things might resolve themselves, I was definitely surprised by some of what happened.
While I didn’t feel the book read like a movie, it certainly could be adapted into one, and that’s not surprising considering the author is an Oscar-winning screenwriter. (He wrote The Imitation Game.) But I felt Moore did a good job giving his characters depth as much as he crafted suspense.
No objections to this legal thriller! (Dad joke.)
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