The Silver State - by Gabriel Urza (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

When a public defender receives a letter from a client on death row, he is forced to reexamine his role in the murder case he cannot shake; a gripping and thought-provoking legal thriller that redefines the genre--by critically acclaimed writer and criminal defense attorney

What if justice isn't something the legal system is truly capable of?

Law school graduate Santi Elcano's idealism is wearing away by the cases and clients he's assigned. When a young mother, Anna Weston, is brutally murdered and her body is found near Reno's infamous silver mines, Santi and his mentor in the public defender's office, C.J., are tasked with defending Michael Atwood, a man arrested for Anna's murder on scant physical evidence.

Eight years later, a shocking letter from Atwood--now on death row--forces Santi to reexamine his role in the case. At the time, public obsession with Anna's disappearance and intense pressure on the police to make an arrest led to a rushed trial. As they investigated the case, Santi and C.J. became increasingly convinced they were defending an innocent man. Now, a horrific discovery leads Santi to reconsider everything he once believed, and all that it has cost him--love, family, and friendship.

Illuminating the deals that get cut in the name of justice, The Silver State explores the murkiness between victim and perpetrator, and the cost of a life in the law. Turning the legal thriller on its head, Urza tells an electrifying, emotionally charged tale of systemic failure and moral ambiguity that asks: What if justice isn't something the legal system is truly capable of? For readers of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent and Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy."

"A propulsive, hallucinatory, urgent novel. This book will haunt you."
--Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of Yellow Bird

Review Quotes

"Nevada native and former Reno public defender Gabriel Urza brings to life [a world he knows intimately] with impeccable precision and authenticity in his new novel The Silver State. He tells the story of young public defender Santi Elcano, whose professional ideals are sorely tested in the morally ambiguous reality of attempting to find justice for the troubled souls whose lives and deaths haunt the system that purports to represent them.m By the end, you may find yourself thinking about the nature of justice, and whether it's attainable in a fallible system that's the only one we have."--Nevada Independent

"[A] gripping crime thriller . . . The twisty legal drama of The Silver State offers an unsettling look into a flawed justice system."--Alta Journal

CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of Summer 2025

"Former public defender Urza draws on his professional experience to craft a memorable legal thriller. . .Urza wisely keeps readers guessing. . .but the book's real strength lies in its nuanced portrayal of a public defender's work and the psychic friction it creates between personal advancement and the pursuit of justice. In the crowded courtroom suspense field, this stands out."--Publishers Weekly

"In Urza's new novel, a public defender receives a letter from a client on death row and the world subsequently drops out from beneath him, as he's forced to reexamine an old case, a disappearance, and his own role in the case. Urza is a supremely talented storyteller with a subversive take on the classic legal thriller, turning the form on its head while still maintaining all the propulsive suspense these novels have to offer, and shocking readers with what they'll find."--Dwyer Murphy, CrimeReads

"With unassailable honesty and empathy, former public defender and criminal attorney Urza demonstrates that there are no good guys or bad guys, just flawed human beings caught in the morass of a complicated and corruptible legal system. Gripping from the get-go, Urza's legal thriller holds its own against lions of the genre. Riveted readers will want to see a Santi and C.J. series."--Booklist (starred review)

"This intricate, hilarious, heartbreaking novel takes us deep into the American criminal justice system, as seen by a young public defender whose clients are often condemned--by poverty, racism, addiction, and indifference--long before they enter a courtroom. The Silver State is as riveting as a thriller, yet it is also the story of a society's ethical erosion. Asking us to think hard about what passes for "justice for all" in the 21st century, it speaks powerfully and directly to our political moment."--Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks

"A humane and empathetic examination: this novel serves as a thoughtful character study, and an indictment of our flawed, thorny criminal justice system. Gabriel Urza writes with elegance and compassion, as he dissects the toll our system takes on this country's most reviled criminals, its most vulnerable subjects, and the noble people struggling to help within the confines of a graceless institution." --Danya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution

"Gabriel Urza's riveting legal thriller pits an idealistic young public defender and his cynical whip-smart female mentor against the all-too-common criminal justice racket. Set against the backdrop of Nevada's stunningly gorgeous and deviously unforgiving landscape, The Silver State mines the emotional depth of two committed lawyers snared in a minefield of corruption, bias, and cruelty. Reminiscent of John Grisham and Scott Turow, Urza brings his skills as a novelist and lawyer, along with the poetic voice of a native son, to a chilling and thought-provoking tale."--Sally Denton, author of The Money and the Power and The Bluegrass Conspiracy

"Astonishing. Urza's tour of the American jurisprudence apparatus is intense and stunning. What makes it terrifying, and utterly riveting, is the cast of humans he sends into the teeth of that apparatus--people conjured with such deft perception, such deeply felt empathy, that one is physically relieved to come up from these pages and realize it is not one's own life, one's own soul, being decided. The Silver State does this wondrous and exceptional thing: it takes you into custody and will not let you go until its final and devastating revelations--and not even then. A breathtaking novel by a first-rate writer."--Tim Johnston, bestselling author of Descent, The Current, and Distant Sons

"Gabriel Urza has written a propulsive, hallucinatory, urgent novel--an interrogation of morality and violence, of the allure and fickleness of narrative, of the porousness between guilt and innocence within a system that casts even the most idealistic among us as unwitting--and often witting--co-conspirators. An already-complicated institution as his subject, Urza complicates it further in surprising, unsettling, and ultimately necessary ways. This book will haunt you."--Sierra Crane Murdoch, author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Yellow Bird

With The Silver State, Gabriel Urza marries a poetic legal thriller with midlife crisis noir. Written in a terrifically stylish hardboiled Great Basin lyric, the novel is an elegy for the guilty and innocent alike, particularly those destroyed by the carceral state. A scathing, mournful and long-overdue autopsy of justice in the American imagination--Claire Vaye Watkins, author of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

About the Author

Gabriel Urza is a writer, attorney, and university professor from Reno, Nevada. He teaches Fiction in the MFA program at Portland State University and lives in Hood River, Oregon.