Review by Booklist Review
Near the end of Grippando's new legal thriller, his hero, Miami attorney Jack Swyteck, all but throws his hands in the air when he laments, For once, please, I need someone to tell me everything there is to know. Readers will sympathize. His client, a Venezuelan beauty married to a megabucks money manager, has been arrested for murdering the fellow who raped her years ago. Well, not murder but conspiracy to murder, because maybe she wasn't there when the killing went down. And maybe she wasn't raped after all. Swyteck's lawyer colleague latches onto this as a way of beating the murder rap: No motive, no murder. There are few courtroom confrontations; the plot is mostly Swyteck's attempts to get at the truth under this thick covering of lies. Some readers may feel the obfuscation works all too well and makes the novel a struggle rather than a pleasure. Still, this will find its audience among Grippando fans accustomed to his methodical way of doing business.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In bestseller Grippando's competent 13th Jack Swyteck novel (after 2016's Gone Again), the Florida lawyer comes to the aid of Isabelle "Isa" Bornelli, an old friend's wife, who's arrested on arrival at the Miami airport from Hong Kong for the murder of a man who raped her while she was a college student a dozen years earlier. Isa's apparent inability to provide a straightforward account of what happened back then raises the tension as Swyteck and co-counsel Manny Espinoza plot her defense. Isa, a well-drawn, complex character, has a tortured family history, which becomes clear when her estranged father interjects himself into the case, serving as something of a soapbox for exploring the complicated, often chauvinistic assumptions made about sex crimes. The legal procedures ring true, but when Swyteck operates outside the courtroom, the action takes a melodramatic turn and eventually leads to a violent resolution that's both convoluted and predictable. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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