On the night that Melina Mora, a proud, free-spirited woman, was murdered, she was seen with a young man that matched Gabriel Soto’s description. Two strands of her hair were found in his bedroom. Sandy Grunwald, a young prosecutor whose political ambitions depend on securing a conviction, finds herself pitted against a preening public defender armed with a freshly discovered, dynamite piece of evidence on the eve of the trial.
And then there’s the jury for the high-stakes Miami trial: Earl Thomas, a straitlaced taxman with his fair share of police encounters, as the begrudging foreperson, and Laura Hurtado-Perez, a physician whose unassuming manner conceals a private pain. There’s also Joseph Cole, who’s the founder of his local neighborhood watch and unduly obsessed with the families around him. Along with four others, these jurors from varied walks of life come together to make one of the most important decisions of their lives.
But as the prosecutor, public defender, and judge know all too well, the criminal justice system is complex and the jury’s experiences, biases, and beliefs will ultimately shape the verdict.
With striking originality and expert storytelling, Robin Peguero’s debut novel explores the prejudice that hangs over every trial in America.