In the new novel by the author of ACT OF GOD and HEROIC MEASURES, Hannah, a 52-year-old photographer and Graham, a 41-year-old anatomy professor are jurors sequestered during a sensational three-week trial: a toddler murdered by one of his twin sisters. At the court appointed cut-rate motel off the interstate, they fall into an intense, furtive affair, but they keep their promise as jurors never to discuss the trial. It is only during deliberations that the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens; at the same time, they realize their fellow jurors are wise to their affair. After the trial, Hannah returns to her much older husband amidst an ongoing media frenzy over the case, fueled by public outrage at a jury that seems to have convicted the wrong twin. Now the jurors are called in by the judge: she has received an anonymous letter about the affair, and she is preparing to release the jurors’ names to the media. From that point on, Hannah's “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profound personal and moral consequences.
