A woman is selected as a member of the jury in the most high-profile trial of recent times. The case seems straightforward: two roommates, a deteriorating relationship, documented blackmail, apparently clear evidence, and a defendant with public opinion against him.
In this Making Of, Ane Odriozola explains how she wrote Veredicto (NdeNovela).
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What does life in the Basque Country in the sixteenth century have to do with a judicial thriller? Nothing. That is exactly what my readers will think when they discover Veredicto, my new novel. After El valle del hierro and Al subir la marea, both historical thrillers, this is my most special novel. Or, at least, the most different.
The seed of
Veredicto
was sown during a coffee-break conversation, when a coworker from the Arrasate-Mondragón Town Hall mentioned that
she had been a member of a jury.
As a true lover of the
true
crimes, I immediately asked her to tell me how the experience went. She is a very meticulous person and explained it to me in great detail, of course. And not only that, the next day she arrived at the office with a folder full of documentation: the letter informing her that she had been selected by lottery, the notice assigning her to a specific case, the summons for the jury selection, the informational booklet handed out to jury members explaining their duties and obligations…
That was a treasure to me.
But was I able to write a judicial novel just because I had a set of documents at my disposal? No. That is why the next step was to go to the Gipuzkoa Provincial Court and attend several sessions of a real trial. I watched the jury members, listened to the administration’s attorney, the prosecutor, the defense lawyers… Session by session, I began to understand how the judicial procedure works, and I left with a head full of ideas and a decision made: although there was a lot of work to be done, I would write a judicial thriller.
The documentation phase was not easy. I replaced historical archives with legal documentation, and I spent hours immersed in gathering information about real trials with juries. And, if we’re being thorough, the more high-profile, the better. Because the first thing I realized when I entered this world is the enormous contradiction at play in these kinds of trials: the law requires jurors to judge solely and exclusively on what they have seen and heard in the courtroom. Yet it is possible they have spent a long time being bombarded by the press with all kinds of information about the case. With that in mind, I wanted the reader to ask themselves the following question: is it possible to issue a fair verdict, or do jurors come to the decision already from home?
When my novel was already structured, the most fun part arrived: interviewing municipal guards, ertzainas and prosecutors. I have been very lucky to be able to count precisely on the people I was looking for. In fact, among them are the forensic officer and the prosecutor who participated in the trial I attended as a member of the public. To see them on the stand, the former giving testimony and the latter questioning, to have them seated before me ready to lend a hand. Could one ask for more?
I have learned a great deal during the writing of this novel. Now I know that the object of the verdict is not to decide whether the accused is guilty or innocent, but to determine whether certain facts have been proven or not. Oh! And I have also learned that in Spanish trials, unlike American ones, the gavel is not used. With how much I would have loved to include a scene with the judge, angry, banging the gavel and shouting “order in the court”!
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Author: Ane Odriozola. Title: Veredicto. Publisher: NdeNovela. Sales: Todos tus libros.