Jury of One

David Ellis built a smart premise here: Shelly Trotter is a children's-rights advocate and governor's daughter who finds herself defending a teenage former client charged with shooting a police officer — and then discovers the boy may be the son she gave up for private adoption years earlier. That maternal stakes engine gives the legal procedural real emotional fuel, and the police corruption subplot adds legitimate thriller tension. Publishers Weekly praised the twisty plot, and Ellis's courtroom details ring true. The honest caveat is that the plot leans hard on coincidence to put Shelly in this situation, and some readers will feel the ending moves faster than the setup deserves. For fans of emotional legal thrillers, though, this delivers.