A second jury in a cold case murder trial is struggling to reach a verdict against a confirmed serial rapist despite damning evidence. Why?
Jedidiah âJedâ Bouvier, a weary idealist and recovering alcoholic, is defending Dexter Wayne Jones, who is a copycat of the infamous Golden State Killer. Jones is on trial for slaughtering a family decades earlier. Evidence of his guilt is overwhelming.
And yetâa first jury couldnât agree on a verdict.
Jed and his co-counsel, Tara Singh, battled relentless prosecutor Catalina âCatâ Galvez in the high-stakes retrial, but sinister forces are moving behind the scenes. A juror from the first trial is murdered; another disappears. Jedâs neighbor, a hulking ex-cop with a dark secret, seems peculiarly interested in the proceedings.
Tensions are high as the second jury becomes hopelessly deadlocked. Meanwhile, Jedâs girlfriend, a beautiful woman with a stunning secret of her own, mysteriously vanishes.
Will a killer walk free?
Set in fictional Murrieta County, California, north of Sacramento, what begins as a legal drama explodes in a terrifying descent into moral ambiguity, as Jed uncovers the identity of the woman he lovesâand the nightmarish truth about the price of idealism in a broken system.
A second jury in a cold case murder trial is struggling to reach a verdict against a confirmed serial rapist despite damning evidence. Why?
Jedidiah âJedâ Bouvier, a weary idealist and recovering alcoholic, is defending Dexter Wayne Jones, who is a copycat of the infamous Golden State Killer. Jones is on trial for slaughtering a family decades earlier. Evidence of his guilt is overwhelming.
And yetâa first jury couldnât agree on a verdict.
Jed and his co-counsel, Tara Singh, battled relentless prosecutor Catalina âCatâ Galvez in the high-stakes retrial, but sinister forces are moving behind the scenes. A juror from the first trial is murdered; another disappears. Jedâs neighbor, a hulking ex-cop with a dark secret, seems peculiarly interested in the proceedings.
Tensions are high as the second jury becomes hopelessly deadlocked. Meanwhile, Jedâs girlfriend, a beautiful woman with a stunning secret of her own, mysteriously vanishes.
Will a killer walk free?
Set in fictional Murrieta County, California, north of Sacramento, what begins as a legal drama explodes in a terrifying descent into moral ambiguity, as Jed uncovers the identity of the woman he lovesâand the nightmarish truth about the price of idealism in a broken system.
JEDIDIAH âJEDâ BOUVIER OFTEN WONDERED WHETHER practicing law or drinking whiskey was more to blame for wrecking his life. Heâd given up the whiskey. But after seventeen years as a Murrieta County Public Defender, there were days when he thought he might be better off giving up the law. This was one of those days.
Jed threw his suit coat on the living room couch and walked toward the kitchen. His landlineâs slowly blinking red message light beckoned from the counter next to the sink. He hit âplay.â Heâd heard the hoarse growl before. âListen, you son of a bitch. You think this is a game? You think this is a goddamned game? That bastard walks and I hold you responsible. You got that? Iâll tear you apart. I want you to picture a chainsaw. Think about that, son of a bitch.â
Jed shook his head, hit delete. It was just another threat from âJack the Ripper,â the name heâd given this repeat menacing caller. There were other âregularsâ that heâd named to reflect the style and content of their threats: âthe Banshee,â âHannibal Lecter,â âthe Joker.â Jed reported the calls to both the Dos Pinos City Police and the County Sheriff âs Office during the first capital murder trial of his client, Dexter Wayne Jones. Neither would do anything. âThey all got these burner phones now,â a sheriff detective had told him. âWe could put a trace on your phone, but it really isnât worth it. Besides, you donât have to worry about the yahoos who leave threats. If someone really wants to get you, they wonât tip you off.â
After receiving that comforting advice from law enforcement, Jed had considered getting rid of the landline. But he and his ex-wife, Cheryl, had always had the phone during their marriage. Heâd kept it after sheâd moved out with their eleven-year-old daughter, Jenna. And he wasnât about to let a bunch of nuts make the decision for him.
Besides, Jed had well learned over the years that as a criminal defeattorney, being hated came with the territory. âEveryone is entitled to a vigorous defense,â pompous law school professors would proclaim. âDue process is the cornerstone of our democracy,â politicians and lawyers and judges would shout. But most regular folks had an innate sense that the âprocessâ that was âdueâ shouldnât be a game that allowed the guilty to delay or evade justice, and many considered game playing to be criminal defense lawyersâ stock-in-trade.
So while the nutcases would spew their empty vitriol at Jed, he well understood that he was not particularly popular even with many quite reasonable, level-headed citizens. That was especially true in this case because he was, for the second time, defending a man who couldnât be prosecuted for many crimes heâd unquestionably committed, and Jed was trying to get him off on the only one that could. Being hated came with the territory.
Jed had decided to stop calling the cops and to think of himself as a connoisseur of death threats, wearing a morbid badge of honor. But at a weary forty-two years old, it all was taking its toll on him.
Jed looked down at the phone. There were still three unheard messages. During the first trial, there usually were at least twenty waiting for him every night. But that first jury couldnât reach a unanimous verdict in what is known as the âguilt phaseâ of a death penalty case, and the judge had declared a mistrial. Then procedural wrangling over rescheduling had ensued, including the prosecutionâs need to find and prepare a new forensic expert witness after the one who testified at the first trial unexpectedly had died. There were many months of delay until the second trial got off the ground.
Today, Friday, the judge had given instructions on the criminal law to that second jury; they would begin deliberations on Monday. But only four messages. Jed smiled, thinking that nowadays even nutcases had short attention spans. He walked to the refrigerator, cracked open a can of ginger ale, and took a long swig, enjoying the burning feeling on his tongue and in his throat.
Jed turned back to the phone. The next message was nothing more than a pause and click. But the next was a shrieking female voice prophesizing the rape and murder of everyone Jed held dear in retribution for his sinful defense of Jones. It was The Banshee. Heâd heard it all from her before; he deleted the message. Next came the last one, starting with a pause, then a quivering male voice: âI wantâI want to knowâI . . .â Then a click. Jed shook his head, shrugged. He didnât think heâd heard that voice before. He decided to finish the ginger ale, change out of his suit and tie, and reheat some of the leftover Chinese food heâd brought home after last nightâs dinner with Tara Singh, his colleague at the Public Defenderâs Office who was trying the case with him.
Jed walked back to the living room and plopped on the couch, spilling a little ginger ale on his suit pants. He placed the can on the coffee table, untied his shoes, and slipped them off. He put his feet on the table and took a long swig of the soda. He again savored the burning on his tongue and in his throat. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He remembered the night over a year ago when the first jury had gotten the case and heâd sat on that couch with his feet up on that same table. The burning then was Scotch, lots of it. Cheryl moving out with Jenna and the stress of the first trial had spun him into a spiral of increasing dependence on the drinkâs numbing of his pain.
When the first jury had deliberated for nine long days before informing the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked on Jonesâs fate, Jed had started attending AA meetings the next week.
Jed nodded, thinking how heâd followed the rulesâhe hadnât had a drop of alcohol since. But then his instinct to cross-examine kicked in and he said aloud, âWell, sir, you havenât followed all the rules, have you?â He finished the ginger ale, rose, and walked across the living room to a wooden cabinet. He bent down, opened the door, and stared at the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Then the phone began to ring, and he stood.
Four rings, a pause, and then that same male voice on the answering machine, slurring and stuttering, âI-I . . . you know this Gideon? Iââ
Jed grabbed the receiver, deciding to give this nutcase a run for his money. âWhat the fuck do you want?â he growled. The voice paused, but then continued, still slurring, âYou can talk to this Gideon, no? What is problem now with this jury? Maybe Gideon not good manââ
âWho the hell is this? And who is Gideon? I donât have time for your bullshit.â
âYou donât know him? Then maybe you should watch out. There only so much I can sayââ
âAnd goddamn it, if youâre trying to fake a Russian accent, youâre just sounding like an asshole. Are you drunk? You tell me who you are. Right this goddamned minute.â
âI-I-Iââ
Jed heard another voice on the phone yell in the background, âWhat the fuck are you doing? Whoâre you calling, dumb shit?â Then a click. The caller had hung up.
Jed replaced the receiver, shook his head. He took a deep breath. It was time to heat up the Chinese. He pulled the waxed white cardboard containers from the refrigerator, dumped their gloppy contents onto a plate, and put it in the microwave. He stepped back and leaned against the sink, his back turned to the window that faced his neighborâs house. He watched the digital clock on the microwave continue its countdown.
A large man in the neighboring house peeked through the closed curtains of an open window, squinting at Jedâs form. Then he turned to look at a Glock 19 handgun sitting on a table behind him. He looked back, fixing his gaze on Jed.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, the microwaveâs timer sounded. Jed pushed away from the sink. The man in the neighboring house scowled, walked to the table, and picked up the gun.
Jed opened the microwave and was greeted by a cloud of pungent steam, indicating heâd overheated the food. He stepped back, then heard the mobile phone heâd left on the coffee table begin to ring. He strode toward it, then smiled. It was Amy from AA, and he couldnât wait to see her again.
Joe Grecoâs The Ghost Case Posse is a suspenseful, morally complex legal thriller that builds tension from the first page to the last. Jedidiah "Jed" Bouvier takes on the defense of Dexter Wayne Jones, a confirmed serial rapist who is suspected of murdering an entire family decades ago. Jed is an idealistic public defender who believes that everyone accused of a crime deserves due process and a fair defense. Greco sets up a complex courtroom drama that explores justice and personal trauma.
My favorite thing about the book was the moral and ethical challenges it presented. Behind the scenes, criminals were constantly influencing the direction of the trial. Hundreds of little details contributed to the building of the suspense, like a neighbor watching from behind a curtain, a threatening phone call, or a piece of evidence that doesnât quite fit.
My favorite character was Jack Johnson, the neighbor, and his dog, Rex. Until the ending, I just thought he was a nosy neighbor, but he played an important role in the story.
I also enjoyed the strategic maneuvering by the attorneys in the courtroom trial. There was a constant sense of paranoia that cranked up the tension. At the same time, the psychological levels of the trial continued to unravel outside the courthouse, in secret phone calls and in the pressure of community outrage toward a clearly guilty defendant.
Greco challenges the notion that the American legal system delivers justice in a tidy and organized manner. He explores the messy, brutal reality of defending someone that society has already judged to be guilty. That raises a questionâwould we rather occasionally have a guilty person go free or live in a society so angry that itâs acceptable to bypass the rule of law and provide vigilante justice to those who are deemed to deserve it? Even though exacting revenge on those who "deserve" it may feel satisfying, it has the potential to turn disastrously wrong in an instant.
Although the numerous subplots occasionally overshadowed the main story, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. There were numerous characters and intricate relationships to navigate.
This book is very well-written. The story masterfully unfolds in a maze of legal intricacies and personal demons. I would recommend The Ghost Case Posse to anyone interested in suspenseful legal courtroom dramas or psychological thrillers. I am giving this book a rating of 4 stars.