The Holdout

by Graham Moore
322 pgs

Ten years ago, a jury found Bobby Nock, a 25-year-old man, not guilty of killing Jessica Silver, the 15-year-old daughter of one of the richest real estate moguls in Los Angeles. Bobby was one of Jessica's teachers and the prosecution argued that the illicit texts found on Bobby's phone from her, along with the traces of her blood, which were found both on the passenger seat of his car, as well as in the trunk of his car, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bobby had killed her, even though her body was never found.

The trial lasted four months and was a media sensation. and Maya Seale served on the jury. Maya was the only member of the jury who believed Bobby was innocent at the time the deliberation process began. She believed there was sufficient doubt surrounding all of the evidence which the prosecution used to argue Bobby's guilt and she eventually persuaded each of the other jurors to vote "not guilty," even though some of them did so begrudgingly. The trial, and the verdict they ultimately delivered, had shaped the last ten years of each of their lives.

Now, ten years later, a true-crime docuseries is being produced, and each of the members of the jury has been invited back to the Omni hotel, the one they had been sequestered in for the four month trial, to be interviewed and filmed for it. One of the jurors, Rick Leonard, who was the strongest believer in Bobby's guilt throughout the trial, has spent the last ten years trying to prove that Maya had been wrong and that they had made a grave mistake in finding him Bobby not guilty. He has told the producers of the show he can now prove Bobby's guilt and will reveal his proof on camera. 

But Rick is found murdered that night, his body discovered in Maya's room, and Maya is the lone suspect. The only way she has any chance to prove her innocence, is to try to determine once and for all whether she and the rest of the jurors delivered the right verdict ten years ago.

The Holdout is Graham Moore's third book, and they're all fantastic. Moore is probably better known for having won the Academy Award for writing the screenplay for The Imitation Game a few years ago, but I think his novels showcase his best writing so far. I couldn't say enough good things about his last book The Last Days of Night, and fortunately for me, The Holdout is just as good.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Last Days of Night

by Graham Moore
366 pgs

Graham Moore's second book The Last Days of Night is a fantastic example of how fascinating and entertaining historical fiction can be. The story begins in 1888. The use of electricity is relatively new, and in the opening scene, Paul Cravath, a young attorney, witnesses a Western Union man being electrocuted while he tries to repair a live wire above Broadway. Blue flames shoot from his mouth, and his skin sloughs off his bones.

Later that same day, Paul meets Thomas Edison, and soon finds himself at the crux of one of the most critical and far-reaching legal battles in the history of the world. The battle over US patent #223868--the electric lamp. Eight years earlier, Edison had been granted the patent, but George Westinghouse, an equally important, if not prolific inventor, believed he had made a better one and wanted to be able to sell it. Edison sued Westinghouse for violating his patent and demanded $1 billion.

If Edison is victorious, his light bulbs, which run on direct current, would be the only ones sold, and the nation's power grid would expand across the country offering only direct current. Westinghouse, on the other hand, enlists the help of another inventor, Nikola Tesla, to find a way to use alternating current, which is safer and can be transmitted over much greater distances. The battle is over the light bulb, but the war is over who will have control of the nation's growing demand for power. The winner will quickly become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the country.

If you're looking for an absolutely accurate telling of the events around the "War of the Currents," as it became known, I wouldn't recommend the book. Moore takes many liberties with the time frame of events, and much of the backstory for key characters is based on his own suppositions. It is, after all, historical fiction. But if you're interested in learning more about how this key time in our nation's progress, and do so while reading a highly-entertaining story, I can't recommend this one enough. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Sherlockian

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

At the turn of the 20th century Arthur Conan Doyle committed murder. He threw a man loved by everyone in England, but whom Doyle had come to despise, off of a cliff in Switzerland - Sherlock Holmes. Now, with his literary creation dead, he's ready to begin  writing again for enjoyment. That all changes when a package arrives at his estate. It contains a bomb and it nearly ends Doyle's life.

His near assassination prompts Doyle, along with his close friend Bram Stoker, to see if he can use the powers of deduction he gave to Holmes to discover the real-life mystery of who wants him dead. Is one of his fans really angry enough with him to try to kill him?

One hundred and ten years later, a similar mystery is unfolding. Harold White is attending the annual convention for The Baker Street Irregulars, the premier society of Holmes devotees known as "Sherlockians". Harold has just become the society's newest inductee and is anxiously awaiting the convention's key-note speaker, Alex Cale. Cale announced months ago that he had finally found one of Doyle's missing diaries, the diary that covered the period of time in between when Doyle killed off Holmes and when he inexplicably resurrected him again for The Hound of the Baskervilles. The night before Cale was to make the contents of that diary public, his body is found in his hotel room, strangled by one of his own shoelaces, with the word ELEMENTARY written on the wall in his own blood.

I really enjoyed The Sherlockian. It's Moore's first book, but it reads like a book written by a seasoned writer. The chapters alternate between Doyle's investigation and Harold White's. Moore does an excellent job of taking real mysteries from Doyle's life - what happened to the missing diary? and does that diary explain why he would decide to resurrect the character of Holmes seven years after his death at the hands of Moriarty? - and incorporating them into a work of fiction. It's a book that will be enjoyed by people who have read the Sherlock Holmes stories and one that will make those who haven't, want to give them a try.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆