The Holdout

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What to expect

'The most gripping and satisfying thriller I've read in more than a decade' Sophie Hannah

'One of the best legal thrillers ... as elegant and gripping as Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent' Daily Mail

'Quite the tour de force! Twelve Angry Men meets Chinatown and creates something of its own' Sarah Pinborough

'This is a tense, emotionally charged, scary-good, stand-out read' Caroline Kepnes

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MAJOR TV SERIES COMING SOON - FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU NETFLIX'S UNBELIEVABLE...

One juror changed the verdict. What if she was wrong?

'Ten years ago we made a decision together...'

Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar fortune, vanishes on her way home from school. Her teacher, Bobby Nock, is the prime suspect. It's an open and shut case for the prosecution, and a quick conviction seems all but guaranteed.

Until Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, persuades the rest of the jurors to vote not guilty: a controversial decision that will change all of their lives forever.

Ten years later, one of the jurors is found dead, and Maya is the prime suspect.

The real killer could be any of the other ten jurors. Is Maya being forced to pay the price for her decision all those years ago?

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'Plunge a syringe filled with adrenaline into the heart of Twelve Angry Men and you've got The Holdout: the first legal thriller in thirty years - ever since Presumed Innocent and A Time to Kill electrified readers the world over - to rank alongside those two modern classics.' AJ Finn

'A page-turning legal thriller with a twisty and absolutely riveting plot ... plus a strong and compelling female heroine. You won't be able to put this one down!' Lisa Scottoline

'Clever, well-written and twistier than a can of silly-string. You absolutely need to read The Holdout!' Emma Kavanagh

'Amazing thriller, deserves to be one of the biggest books of 2020' Michelle Davies

'Terrific, twisty and well-structured thriller' Adele Geras

Critics Review

  • Plunge a syringe filled with adrenaline into the heart of Twelve Angry Men and you’ve got The Holdout: the first legal thriller thirty years – ever since Presumed Innocent and A Time to Kill electrified readers the world over – to rank alongside those two modern classics. But Graham Moore’s novel is so much more than exhilarating courtroom blood sport: it’s a provocative, urgent inquiry into American justice (and injustice) in the twenty-first century; it’s a witty battle of the sexes; it’s a compassionate character study; it’s a fiendishly slippery game of cat-and-mouse suspense. Whether you’re a fan of Harper Lee or Lisa Scottoline, if you loved The Lincoln Lawyer or Defending Jacob – or even if you didn’t! – The Holdout will astonish you. It sure as hell astonished me.

    AJ Finn
  • Quite the tour de force! Twelve Angry Men meets Chinatown and creates something of its own

    Sarah Pinborough
  • The most gripping and satisfying thriller I’ve read in more than a decade

    Sophie Hannah
  • Graham Moore’s heart beats on every page of THE HOLDOUT, a murder trial as only he could have written it: secrets and lies, mysteries upon mysteries, and a cast of characters each with their own dubious motives. This is a tense, emotionally charged, scary-good, stand-out read that hooked me till the last page.

    Caroline Kepnes
  • Wow! I loved THE HOLDOUT, in which author Graham Moore does the impossible, creating a page-turning legal thriller with a twisty and absolutely riveting plot, as well as raising profound and though-provoking questions about the jury system and modern justice. All that, plus a strong and compelling female heroine in lawyer Maya Searle, whom you’ll root for as the tables turn against her and she finds herself behind bars, with everything on the line. You won’t be able to put this one down!

    Lisa Scottoline
  • Clever, well-written and twistier than a can of silly-string. You absolutely need to read The Holdout! I could not put it down.

    Emma Kavanagh

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