A Jury of Her Peers: A Novel

By Jean Hanff Korelitz

As a little girl climbs off a school bus on the Upper East Side of New York, a man named Trent rushes from the shadows to stab her viciously, instantly becoming the city's latest pariah and setting into motion an increasingly bizarre chain of occurrences. At one end of the chain is Sybylla Muldoon, the Legal Aid attorney who must somehow overcome eyewitness accounts, devastating forensic evidence, and the brutal disfigurement of an innocent child in her struggle to defend Trent; at the other is the mystery of why a previously peaceful and rational man should suddenly commit such an abhorrent crime. Sybylla's client may be inescapably guilty of the act, but everything about the case feels unaccountably wrong.

Raised to argue both sides of anything by her father, a conservative judge whom she adores even as she rejects his politics, Sybylla is committed to the principles of public defense but growing increasingly weary in its practice. Now as she readies Trent's case for trial, Sybylla makes a series of seemingly unrelated discoveries that bind together a thriving trial consulting firm dealing exclusively with conservative prosecuting attorneys, a pattern of unnoticed abductions among New York's homeless, a long-abandoned avenue of medical research, and Sam, Sybylla's new colleague at Legal Aid whom she falls for but can't quite trust. In the end, Trent's mystery leads her to the very summit of the American legal system—the confirmation hearings of a Supreme Court nominee—and to the heart of her own family history, until Sybylla must reconsider virtually everything she believes she knows about her own life.

With its captivating protagonist and its timely consideration of juries, trial consultants, and that elusive notion, justice, A Jury of Her Peers is a chilling novel about the law—and those who seek to corrupt it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780307830265

Jean Hanff Korelitz

Jean Hanff Korelitz is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Plot, The Latecomer, You Should Have Known (which aired on HBO in October 2020 as The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, and Donald Sutherland), Admission (adapted as a film in 2013 starring Tina Fey), The Devil and Webster, The White Rose, The Sabbathday River and A Jury of Her Peers, as well as Interference Powder, a novel for children. Her company BOOKTHEWRITER hosts Pop-Up Book Groups in which small groups of readers discuss new books with their authors. She lives in New York City with her husband, Irish poet Paul Muldoon.

Reviews for A Jury of Her Peers

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this back catalogue (her first) mystery because I like the author. This is from 1996 and I could tell. It's just not modern, no cellphones, Google, FB, etc. Didn't make it bad, just pleasantly time warped, I liked the main character, a Legal Aid attorney, and her boss, and her father, a SCOTUS nominee. The plot was decent, a bit farfetched in an apocalyptic way. Almost 20 years later, there's a lot worse that could happen to juries (no more spoilage).I especially liked that your read of Sybylla's romantic interest will waver - it added to the overall fun.Not hardly as good as Admission or the recent You Should Have Known, which means she's getting better all the time!

[wareagle78 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting and unusual book. The daughter of a celebrated jurist who has turned her professional career into that of a public defender finds herself up against an incredible but facinating plot when one of her former clients is charged for a crime that she finds to be uncharacteristic of him. (Whew, was that a long sentence or what?)

[elliezann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sybella Muldoon is no stranger to defying public opinion and family criticism. This newest uphill battle could kill her. Trent a homelessman is accused of murdering a small child and everyone wants Sybella to stop trying to defend him-. As a legal defense lawyer she could just go through the moyions but she knows Trent could not possibly do it and she takes on the legal system, her father and his wealthy friends,the government and the science community, to find the real killer.Author Jean Korelitz weaves a fascinating yes-it-could happen -to-you thriller with a public defender you want by your side.