"Incredible superb legal thriller"

In a Midwestern city, attorney Shelly Trotter works for the Child Advocacy Project by representing troubled students in court. Because she has never worked a capital case, Shelly asks Paul Riley to defend Alex Baniewicz, accused of killing police officer Raymond Miroballi. Paul prefers Shelly lead the defense, which she reluctantly agrees to do.

Already having doubts that she can provide an adequate defense, Shelly learns that Baniewicz may be the son she gave up for adoption following a rape. Made public that revelation could destroy her conservative father's reelection for state governor. The case turns even more complex when federal agents inform Shelly that Alex was working undercover for them trying to find evidence that martyred heroic cop Miroballi sold drugs. As she continues to develop the defense, Shelly investigates the link between her client and a vicious gang of reported drug dealers, the Cannibals. Her probe leads to Alex's friend Ronnie Masters, who not only may be a cop killer, but seems more likely the infant that she gave away.

The twists in this incredible superb legal thriller are amazing (there are plenty more to come than what was described above) yet each one feels right though the megatons are at hydrogen bomb level revelations. That along with a solid cast makes for a terrific terse tale that will make David Ellis a household name. Even the street punks come across as real making a JURY OF ONE the must sub-genre read of the year so far.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted March 10, 2004

Summary

An edge-of-the-seat legal thriller about a woman who learns the boy she's defending for murder may be the child she gave up for adoption years earlier-from an Edgar Award winner who belongs "in the ring with Scott Turow" (Kirkus Reviews). Life Sentence, David Ellis's follow-up to his Edgar-winning debut, Line of Vision, inspired great admiration from lovers of courtroom suspense. "Ellis balances plot, setting, pacing, characterization, and surprises in just the right measure to create a compelling high-stakes drama," said The Washington Post Book World. In Jury of One, Shelly Trotter, the daughter of the state's governor and a children's-rights advocate, is thrust into a world in which she's completely unschooled-the criminal court. The defendant is a seventeen-year-old former client who is accused of killing a cop. Shelly soon learns that this boy was caught in the middle of an undercover operation to trap corrupt officers. But what was his role in the sting? The target or the bait? And what does the prosecution really have against him? Then comes the shocker: The kid says he is the son she gave up in a private adoption kept hush-hush by her father, who had political ambitions beyond their small town. As the evidence mounts, Shelly finds that nothing-not legal ethics, not her father's reelection campaign-will stop her from keeping her son off death row-for with this client, she is truly a jury of one.