A fast paced and gripping legal battle, with lots of twists. Gripping, I didn’t want to put it down.
Ten years ago, fifteen year old, Jessica Silver was murdered although her body was never found. Bobby Nock, her English teacher was arrested and tried for the crime.
Maya Seale, now a lawyer herself. was on that jury and turned the verdict around, convincing the other jurors that the case against Bobby hadn’t been proved.
A lot has happened in the last ten years and not all the jurors are convinced they made the right decision. When they decide to all meet up and discuss the trial one of them is murdered and Maya is arrested. It seems though they all have secrets to hide and nothing is straight forward.

It’s not my usual fare in fiction but I am so glad I read this book, exciting, tense and thoroughly enjoyable

10 years ago a jury of 12 people returns a not guilty verdict in a case where a young black teacher is accused of murdering the daughter of a rich white family. The verdict is wholly unexpected and 10 years later they are reunited by a TV programme to once again face the issues raised in the case.

The book moves between the past case and the present, presenting the juror views alongside their personal story. In the present, the book focuses mainly on Maya who was the one juror to convince all others to return a not guilty verdict.

Full of twists and turns, you are kept guessing until the end whether the correct verdict was returned and find the truth of what happened 10 years before.

This is an intriguing book that mostly keeps my interest throughout. The start certainly catches your attention and let’s just say it’s a head turner! Ten years ago Jessica Silver, daughter of wealthy Lou Silver, goes missing and her body never found. Her teacher Bobby Nock is eventually charged with her murder and the case goes to trial. The evidence against Nock is not overwhelming but is suggestive and one things for sure, the trial is an absolute cock up. The jurors are expected to return a guilty verdict but one juror, Maya Searle, is not convinced of guilt. After days and days of debate and counter debate the jurors reach a not guilty verdict much to the outrage of the court of public opinion. It’s this element of the book I find most disturbing as public opinion ruins many of the jurors lives. Ten years on, one juror believes he has irrefutable evidence of Nock’s guilt and the jury reassemble for a TV programme. What happens next is unexpected and twisty demonstrating that the trial sets of a chain reaction of catastrophic events with an impact similar to a runaway train. The story is told in alternate storylines from each jurors perspective at the time of the trial and now, principally from Maya’s point of view. This works well for most of the book but I think that towards the end of the book the final remaining jurors stories do not seem so relevant.

There is a lot I like about this book. The case is really interesting, the trial is fascinating if flawed and the juror dynamics is excellent. I like the dialogue between Maya and the other jurors and it feels a bit like knights armed combat. You get two mysteries for the price of one, the story unfolds really well with a feeling of suspense and tension and it feels a bit like a movie. There are some really good twists, more than one shocker and the end is very unexpected. I like that the author makes you think long and hard about the jury system and how one person with a strong point of view can persuade others to change their minds. However, whether you have a jury or judges you will always have opinion because we are human and our brains are wired that way.

My only reservations about the book lie with its length, it’s a bit overlong and the end is rather convoluted. Overall, though I did enjoy it as I like the concept, the characters are really interesting especially Maya and the law aspect is intriguing and thought provoking.

Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the ARC. Publication date in UK 20/2/20.

Eventually I could barely figure out what was going on .. who were the goodies and who the baddies.. for me this story was utterly implausible that a jury would gather together v privately to look into an old case they'd rendered judgement on years ago. And then, murders abound among the jurors themselves .. sorry .. utterly off beat.

For me, good but not a great book. A clever premise - a jury meet again, 10 years later, to discuss the decisions and consequences they reached in a court room. There is compelling new evidence, which may have changed the outcome, but then a former jury member is found murdered, and the whodunnit begins. Its an OK read.

I had seen The Holdout all over social media lately, so I was delighted to be able to read it early. It sounded like exactly the kind of legal thrillers I love. It follows Maya, ten years after she served on a jury that had an interesting case and resolution. While I wanted to love this one,I thought it was only ok. There were a lot of characters and versions of the story, which for me, detracted from the pace of the book as a whole. It’s an enjoyable read, but I didn’t love it.

Sooooo Good! Maya is one of a panel of jurors who delivers a surprising and extremely controversial Not Guilty verdict in a high profile LA murder trial. The ramifications for her and the other jurors of their unpopular verdict come back to haunt them a decade later. They discover that one juror has been digging into their pasts....and when one of the jurors ends up dead things really take off. This is a brilliantly well-told and compelling part thriller, part murder mystery with genuinely surprising plot twists. It's one of those superb novels that you won't stop thinking about. Buckle up for an exciting read.

I’ve dived wholeheartedly into the legal thriller in recent years, devouring Take It Back by Kia Abdullah, Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh and several of John Grisham’s backlist to satisfy my craving for more courtroom hijinks, so when The Holdout popped up on NetGalley as a clever new take on the genre from bestselling author and screenwriter of the fantastic film The Imitation Game, I knew I had to take a look, and I was delighted when I was selected by Orion as one of the first jury to make a judgement on the novel.

The Holdout follows the jury tasked with deciding the verdict of the case of the decade, where Bobby Nock, a 25-year old African American teacher is charged with the murder of fifteen-year old Jessica Silver, one of his students. So far, it’s an interesting concept but not so unique in the genre.

Here’s where The Holdout really begins to stand out. The book picks up 10 years after the case in question had concluded, with the jury finding Bobby Nock not guilty of the murder, after Maya, initially the only holdout claiming Bobby’s innocence, manages to convince all 11 other members of the jury to flip their votes.

10 years later the case is still a huge part of every juror’s life. Some have written bestselling expose memoirs, some have lost their jobs and some, like our protagonist Maya, have built their career around it, as she becomes a defence attorney herself. She can’t get rid of the case but her life has settled down a little.

But when Rick, one of her fellow jurors, gets in touch to say they’re filming a reunion TV special where he’ll expose new evidence about the case and they’ll have a landmark ‘re-vote’, secrets from ten years ago threaten to spill out all over again. And when one of the jurors ends up dead at the reunion, all eyes turn to the remaining members as suspects.

The story takes place in 2019, with flashbacks to the original trial in 2009, and primarily follows Maya, though each of the jury members has a POV chapter at some point throughout the novel, giving a great glimpse into each of their personalities and situations. Some of the characters were definitely more developed than others, but when you’re basing a novel on a 12-person jury, there’s always going to have to be some characters who’re more peripheral, and this doesn’t interfere with the reader’s enjoyment at all.

The writing is brilliant. It’s got a cinematic flair, as you’d expect from an author with this background, and it maintains a snippy pace throughout, constantly driving from revelation to revelation. Description is sparingly used but powerful when it is, with several of the more outlandish settings still firmly etched in my mind even a week or so after finishing the book.

The biggest standout for me, as someone who is both a voracious reader and an aspiring writer, is the dialogue. Often one of the more challenging parts of a book, the author is spectacular here. Every line feels real and authentic, and most importantly, sounds like something a real human being would actually say, while maintaining the bite that great written dialogue needs.

Of course, I can’t talk too much on the intricate details of the plot, but safe to say that you will not be disappointed. There’s several fantastic twists, all of the storylines are bought together brilliantly and the climax is inventive, if perhaps slightly twee, though I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. All-in-all I was very disappointed to find myself finishing the last page, and desperately hope for more from the author in the near future.

Your honour, on charges of being an inventive, cinematic and utterly gripping legal thriller, this member of the jury finds The Holdout utterly guilty.

The Holdout is a very immersive novel by Graham Moore. It follows the members of a jury in the wake of a decision they made nine years ago which many, nationwide in America, deem scandalous. One member of the jury, Rick, is racked with guilt. He believes that he was hoodwinked and went against his conscience in deciding to find a man suspected of murder, not guilty. He is determined to bring the jury members back together and reveal new evidence about the case which he has uncovered. But someone is keen to make sure that whatever it is Rick finds, that it remains buried.

I really enjoyed this. From the beginning, I could never be sure if Bobby Nock, the man who was found not guilty of the murder of his student in 2009, was guilty or innocent. Graham Moore kept me guessing, and I wanted to know what evidence, if any, Rick, had supposedly uncovered. Would it be enough to convince the rest of the group of his belief that Bobby was indeed guilty?

I have to say that when I got to the end of this book, one revelation completely floored me, and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting about it for a while. I was expecting it to go one way and Graham Moore pulled the rug out from under my feet. It was very well done, and it didn’t make me feel that that wouldn’t be believable.

Maya was a character who I got on with from the start. Like Rick is with his belief, Maya is steadfast in hers that Bobby is innocent. But her own thoughts on the case throw a spanner in the works when the plot takes an unexpected direction, leaving Maya in a perilous situation that will have a huge impact on the rest of her life. I was rooting for Maya all the way through. I wanted her to succeed in what she was doing, and I had a lot of suspicions about the other members of the jury.

This novel is very well done, and I found the ending very satisfactory. A top read for me!

Loved the sound of the premise, but wasn't as grabbed by the end product as I thought I'd be, Although it's a well written book, I didn't fall in love with the characters enough to buy in to the journey they went on. As I'm sure we all do, there's the on-going guessing game of whodunnit, and I turns out the first thought I had quite early on was pretty much bang on the money, which detracted from how I felt about it at the end. Not a criticism of the author's style though, which made for a story that flowed well enough, and would likely read whatever they bring out next.

This was a great example of a courtroom drama thriller. Lots of investigation, jury moments, cat and mouse stuff.

However, without a memorable antagonist, or driving force (it's never the person you think it is) the central mystery is the only thing driving the plot forward.

Good, but not great. Some well drawn characters mean it's very enjoyable, super readable, just not ultimately memorable.

A thoroughly entertaining really very clever book in the end, especially given all the influences I thought about whilst reading this were referenced by the author himself later in the book...And used to really good effect within the resolution.

Kind of thought provoking too a book with a moral dilemma at the heart of it wrapped up in a mystery element that is very intriguing. 

Great pace, plotting and addictive quality with engaging eclectic characters and a what would you do vibe that'll keep this novel in your head after reading.

Really very good indeed. Fuller review near publication.