The Juror » (Abridged)

George Dawes Green is a highly acclaimed novelist and poet. He currently divides his time between Georgia and New York.

Annie Laird is Juror 224. A sculptor with a career going nowhere. A single mother struggling to raise a son. A good citizen who has been summoned to what looks like a routine tour of civic duty. But the trial she is called to serve on is no ordinary trial. It is a mob trial, whose outcome has been meticulously orchestrated by a man of insidious power and deadly precision. A man who lives by the teachings of Lao Tsu ... whose magnetism is irresistible ... whose mind is as brilliant as it is twisted. He is known to some as the Teacher, and he's set his sights on Annie Laird. Pulled into the most chilling depths of the criminal underworld, Annie will be seduced by double-edged promises, stalked by the specter of terror, then, finally, driven to a shocking decision by the most basic motivation a woman can know. Graced with a rarely equaled mastery of style, peopled with a remarkable gallery of characters, and featuring one of the most compelling criminal minds in contemporary fiction, George Dawes Green's The Juror is a tour de force of crime and obsession, evil and innocence - a story that taps into fears so primal they linger long after the last page has been read.

Publishers Weekly

Single mother and struggling sculptress Annie Laird makes a huge mistake when she joins the jury at the Westchester murder trial of mob boss Louie Buffano. Immediately, Annie is contacted by ``the Teacher,'' the sleek, Lao Tse-quoting minence grise behind Buffano, who makes it clear that life, and that of her son Oliver, depend on her saying two words: ``Not guilty.'' And so begins Green's (The Caveman's Valentine) masterfully manipulative thriller, a gem of deft plotting given added lustre through its rich, if not wholly cohesive, characterizations. Annie is an especially fine creation, victimized by her whipsawing emotions as she panics, rebels, crosses her conscience and plots to trap the Teacher. The Teacher is equally complex, an utterly logical madman whose portrait is flawed only by his unlikely romantic obsession with Annie (Buffano alone is a throwaway character, too clearly modeled on John Gotti). The plot, jittering from one brutal, clever twist to the next, will keep readers in a cold sweat. Green pushes buttons without remorse, always keeping his finger poised above the one marked ``Oliver's death''-and as it descends at book's end, the tension is nearly unbearable. 200,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Main Selection; audio rights to Time Warner AudioBooks. (Jan.)