Presumed Guilty

by Alexandra Shapiro

Overview

March 14th, 2012 was a typical day for Emma Simpson, a successful portfolio manager running the Manhattan office of a big-time hedge fund. Emma followed her usual routine, interacting with coworkers and clients before returning to her quiet family home in the Hudson Valley, where she lives with her husband and two children.

But more than a year later, Emma's world is forever changed-all because of a short email she dashed off on her way home that day to simply support routine company practices. That email becomes the focal point of a criminal investigation by ambitious federal prosecutors.

Alexandra Shapiro's Presumed Guilty follows Emma's journey as the target of a federal white-collar criminal prosecution. She must now fight to prove her innocence, protect her family, and preserve her reputation.

Will she prevail, or will the justice system fail her?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637306406
Publisher:	New Degree Press
Publication date:	03/24/2022
Pages:	278
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.58(d)

Editorial Reviews

2022-03-22
In this debut legal novel, an innocent Wall Street executive becomes the subject of a misguided criminal investigation.

New York, 2012. Emma Simpson, the manager of the Manhattan office of the hedge fund Otis Capital, dashes off an email before leaving work for the day. It’s a routine missive, encouraging the members of her team to follow the company’s document retention policy. Then she drives home to her husband and two children on their Hudson Valley farm. One year later, Otis Capital is the target of an insider trading investigation conducted by the United States Attorney’s office, and Emma—without realizing it—has become its primary person of interest. Word comes down that she needs to lawyer up. “Did she really need her own big-shot defense lawyer?” wonders Emma. “The company already had a very expensive law firm with a bunch of former federal prosecutors handling the subpoena. Was there something they weren’t telling her?” And after all, she didn’t do anything wrong. Regardless, Emma finds herself in the sights of two ambitious federal prosecutors—one on the fast track to a prominent career and one afraid that he isn’t—and it might not matter who, if anyone, is actually guilty. The wheels of justice are in motion, and Emma is trapped directly in their path. Shapiro’s prose is clean and fluid, capturing the intricacies of finance law and the emotional states of her characters with equal clarity: “Emma stared at the empty yellow pad in front of her and tapped her pencil on it repeatedly. She felt numb and disconnected from her surroundings. It was as if she had just discovered she’d been living in a simulation for the past forty-five years with no ability to control a destiny that was simply the product of algorithms in someone else’s computer program.” The author demonstrates a convincing familiarity with Wall Street and financial prosecution, and the characters, even the minor ones, are memorably constructed. Emma has frustratingly little control over her own story, which robs the book of some of its potential dynamism but illustrates for readers how powerless an innocent person often is before the law.

A terrifyingly detailed, engrossing tale about what happens when the judicial hammer comes down.

Kirkus Reviews