A True Verdict
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- 69,00 kr
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- 69,00 kr
Publisher Description
From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Robert Rotstein, A True Verdict is an edge-of-your-seat legal thriller filled with secrets.
MediMiracle Corporation manufactures Sophrosyne, a miracle cure for opiate addiction. Ellison Ricard, a research analyst for the company, claims to have uncovered data that proves Black users of Sophrosyne experience fatal side effects far more often than people of other races. When Ricard confronts MediMiracle’s charismatic founder and CEO, Peyton Burke, a violent confrontation ensues. The wheelchair-bound Ricard—a Black man who had been severely injured years earlier—is fired that very day.
Ricard turns to aging lawyer M. Bailey Klaus, to sue Burke and MediMiracle for civil rights violations, alleging that Ricard was fired because he blew the whistle on the coverup and because he was Black. Klaus faces off against his former protégé, Cicely Pagano, each arguing for drastically different versions of Ricard. Is he a brilliant, sincere, credible person who is rightfully standing up against a deadly product? Or is he a delusional, embittered, and avaricious liar who is taking advantage of his former employer?
Ricard’s fate rests with an eight-person jury who can’t agree on anything. Working together to reach a consensus means navigating a tempest of the most divisive issues: politics, sexism, drug abuse, capitalism, healthcare, and racism. Can eight people with different backgrounds, ages, classes, and political views avoid coming to blows, much less render a true verdict?
Told through court transcripts and jury deliberations, A True Verdict is a suspenseful ride to a shocking verdict …
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rotstein's stale latest (after The Out-of-Town Lawyer) dramatizes a wrongful termination lawsuit from more than 10 different perspectives. Through court transcripts and flashbacks, Rotstein spins a familiar tale of medical malpractice: after receiving FDA approval for Sophrosyne, a drug designed to end opiate addiction, pharmaceutical company MediMiracle is poised to dominate the market. Then researcher Ellison Ricard makes an alarming discovery during a trial study: Sophrosyne appears to increase the risk of stroke and fatal skin disorders among Black patients. After Ricard reports his findings and threatens to blow the whistle if they aren't addressed, he's fired by MediMiracle CEO Peyton Burke. Ricard files a civil suit against Burke and the company, throwing Sophrosyne's future into question and putting the matter before an eight-person jury. Rotstein cycles through the well-rendered viewpoints of the jurors—an editor, a furniture magnate, a teacher, and a scientist among them—as well as those of the attorneys on both sides of the case, but the narrative structure does little to enhance the story's themes, and it certainly doesn't make the absurd denouement any easier to swallow. Even the author's fans will struggle with this one.
