Judge and Jury - Hardcover

Patterson With Andrew Gross, James; Patterson, James; Gross, Andrew

4.01

50,555 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0755330471 ISBN 13: 9780755330478

Publisher: Headline, 2006

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It's the trial of the decade - Dominick Cavallo, the modern-day Godfather, has finally been put in the dock, and there's enough evidence to make it certain he'll be convicted. Heavy security surrounds the courtroom, and Nick Pellisante, the FBI agent who helped to nail Cavallo, keeps a close eye on proceedings. But things quickly start to go wrong. Faced with anonymous threats, the jury is sequestered. Then, the bus taking them to their hotel is blown up, and only Andie Echeverra survives. Andie's child was on the bus too - so she now has the strongest possible reason for wanting to see justice done, not to Cavallo alone, but to whoever planted that bomb. She and Pellisante both know that will be difficult, but they can't foresee just how difficult.

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Review:

And still they come, the James Patterson novels written in tandem with Andrew Gross--the latter a writer we’ve only heard of because... he writes novels in tandem with James Patterson. But as Judge and Jury proves, this is a team that breaks all the rules of these double novels (in which a top writer’s synopsis is worked up by another writer lower down the feeding chain). The Patterson/Gross books are often as compulsive reads as Patterson's solo efforts, and while the tagline of this one ('the ultimate legal thriller') may be optimistic, it's still a pretty pacy piece of work, with a strong central premise.

Struggling actress Andie DeGrasse is finding her acting career in low gear as she copes with the demands of being a single mother. When she finds herself on jury duty, she hopes that she can shuck her responsibilities by telling the judge that she's played a stripper in The Sopranos. But she still finds herself as juror number 11 in a highly important trial involving a mob boss with a really nasty reputation. Bringing Mafia Don Dominic Cavello to trial has been the crowning achievement of senior FBI agent Nick Pellisante, who has been on Cavello's tale for years. The Don, known as ‘The Electrician’, is famous for his many grisly crimes, but this time it looks like he's about to go down for good. But as the jury moves towards a verdict, the Don does something that throws everything into chaos--including the life of actress and reluctant juror Andie. A bitter battle ensues, in which Andie and Nick Pellisante are obliged to form a partnership that will either save both their lives--or end them.

What makes this one particularly diverting is the canny juggling of a variety of elements, all of which are granted equal emphasis by Patterson and Gross. As always with the team, no effort is wasted on elegant writing--this is rigorously functional stuff, designed with one purpose: to keep us reading. And that task the authors pull off with very little effort.

--Barry Forshaw

Book Description:

Another whiteknuckle ride of a thriller from international number one bestselling author James Patterson

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