Until now, no one has ever written a book about how the secret grand jury system works in this country from the inside--from the point of view of a grand juror. The Trial before the Trial is that insider's expose. Ernest Larsen served nine days on a special narcotics grand jury in Manhattan before being forced off--at the insistence of the district attorney--and accused of contempt of court. Why? Because day after day he kept trying to halt what he saw as the exercise of racialized injustice. This book, at once ironic and angry, written in the form of a nonfiction novel, brings to light what really happens on a grand jury, a factual story that takes place just a few months before the events in Ferguson, Missouri and the rise of Black Lives Matter.