Bestselling author James Grippando’s legendary criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is back to defend a single mother accused of kidnapping her own child in a perilous case involving politics and international diplomacy that will test his legal expertise and his marriage.

Jack Swyteck’s new client fled Iran to Miami with her daughter, and has been accused of kidnapping by her husband. The seasoned attorney must not only plan a winning defense. To stop the father from taking the girl back to Tehran, Jack must build a case under international law and prove that returning the child would put her at risk.

But everything in this case isn’t what it seems, and Jack quickly learns that his client is really the child’s aunt and that the biological mother may have been killed by Iran’s morality police. But what role did the father play in his wife’s death, and why is Jack’s wife, FBI Agent Andie Henning, being pressured by her bosses to persuade Jack to drop the case?

Plunging into an investigation unlike any other, Jack must discover who is behind the legal maneuvering and what their interest is. As politics threatens to derail the case and compromise the best interests of the child, Jack and Andie find themselves on opposite sides—with their marriage hanging in the balance. For their relationship to survive, the couple must navigate a treacherous web of deceit that extends from a Miami courthouse to the highest echelons of Washington DC, and spells grave danger at every turn.

Harper Lee Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author James Grippando returns with a bold new thriller that asks at what price do we open our lives to Big Data. Aspiring playwright, Kate Gamble, is struggling to launch a script she’s been secretly researching her entire life, mostly at the family dinner table. Her father is Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies, a private data integration company whose clients include the CIA and virtually every counter-terrorism organization in the Western World. Kate’s father adores her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would be the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. But Kate is compelled to tell this story—not only as an artist exploring the personal information catastrophe that affects us all, but as a daughter trying to understand her mother’s apparent loss of purpose, made even more disturbing by the suicide note she left behind: I did it for Kate. Then Patrick Battle comes back into her life, changing everything she has ever thought about her play, her father, and her mother’s tragic death. Patrick is a childhood friend, but he is now Buck’s golden boy with security clearance to the company’s most sensitive projects. When Buck comes under investigation by the Justice Department and Patrick suddenly goes missing, Kate doesn’t know who to trust. A phone call confirms her worst nightmare: Patrick has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is “Code 6�—the most secret and potentially dangerous technology her father’s company has ever developed. Kate’s fight to bring Patrick home safely reveals a conspiracy and cover up that may implicate one of the most powerful executives in the tech industry, while the development of Kate’s play unleashes family secrets and the demons behind her mother’s cryptic final note. The two paths converge in explosive fashion, leading to a shocking and terrifying discovery that puts Kate and Patrick in the crosshairs of forces who will stop at nothing to control Code 6. 

Winner of the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction From the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Cash Landing, Cane & Abe, and Black Horizon, James Grippando, an electrifying and fast-paced tale of suspense about Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck and his first death-row client since The Pardon in a case as twisty as it is shocking. Sashi Burgette vanished three years ago on her way to school. The night after the teenager's disappearance, ex-con Dylan Kyle was stopped for drunk driving. An article of Sashi's clothing was found in his truck, and a police videotape of his drunken explanation under interrogation sealed his fate at trial. Now, just days from Kyle's execution, Sashi's mother visits Jack Swyteck, doing pro bono work at the Freedom Institute, and delivers shocking news: "Sashi called me." The police dismiss the call as a cruel hoax. The State Attorney refuses to consider the new evidence, insisting the case is closed. The governor has already signed the death warrant. An innocent man may be executed and time is running out--unless his lawyers can locate Sashi. A man of principle who believes in justice, Jack jumps into the investigation. But the deeper he digs the more he discovers that nothing is what it appears to be. Not the victim. Not her alleged killer. And definitely not Sashi's parents, whose grief ruptured their marriage, each openly blaming the other for what happened to their daughter. As their gut-wrenching and hopelessly conflicting version of events unfolds in a Miami courtroom, it becomes clear there is something even more difficult to find than a long-missing girl . . . The truth.

A contentious intellectual piracy case leads to an unsolved murder, and Jack Swyteck's client--a pop music icon--is the accused killer. Piracy costs the movie and music industry billions. No one has been able to stop it. But that won't stop Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck. His latest client, Imani Nichols, is a Grammy-winning popstar whose career has skyrocketed. Despite her success, she's the most underpaid superstar on the planet because of an onerous record contract she signed as a teenager with her now ex-husband Shaky Nichols, who has made himself rich off her royalties. Preferring to see thieves profit from her music than let her ex-husband pocket one more dime, Imani takes to social media and tells her millions of fans to "go pirate" and download her music illegally. Her hardball tactic leads to scorched-earth litigation, and now she needs Jack's help. The case takes a deadly turn when salacious allegations of infidelity send Imani and Shaky down a path of mutual assured destruction, each implicating the other in the unsolved murder of Imani's extra-marital lover twelve years ago. Tyler McCormick died of asphyxiation, and his body was found in Biscayne Bay, chained to a piling with the words "goodbye girl" impressed on his chest. Despite their fierce denials, Imani and Shakey are both indicted for murder, leading to a sensational trial that exposes shocking secrets about their failed marriage, their cut-throat business partnership, and Imani's astonishing success. Yet as Jack discovers, uncovering the truth about the killing and the cryptic "goodbye girl" won't just exonerate or convict his client, her ex, and their music empire. It may shape the future of the entire recording industry.

A contentious intellectual piracy case leads to an unsolved murder, and Jack Swyteck’s client—a pop music icon—is the accused killer. Piracy costs the movie and music industry billions. No one has been able to stop it. But that won’t stop Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck. His latest client, Imani Nichols, is a Grammy-winning popstar whose career has skyrocketed. Despite her success, she’s the most underpaid superstar on the planet because of an onerous record contract she signed as a teenager with her now ex-husband Shaky Nichols, who has made himself rich off her royalties.  Preferring to see thieves profit from her music than let her ex-husband pocket one more dime, Imani takes to social media and tells her millions of fans to “go pirate� and download her music illegally. Her hardball tactic leads to scorched-earth litigation, and now she needs Jack’s help.  The case takes a deadly turn when salacious allegations of infidelity send Imani and Shaky down a path of mutual assured destruction, each implicating the other in the unsolved murder of Imani’s extra-marital lover twelve years ago. Tyler McCormick died of asphyxiation, and his body was found in Biscayne Bay, chained to a piling with the words "goodbye girl" impressed on his chest. Despite their fierce denials, Imani and Shakey are both indicted for murder, leading to a sensational trial that exposes shocking secrets about their failed marriage, their cut-throat business partnership, and Imani’s astonishing success.  Yet as Jack discovers, uncovering the truth about the killing and the cryptic “goodbye girl� won’t just exonerate or convict his client, her ex, and their music empire. It may shape the future of the entire recording industry.

Defending a woman accused of murdering the man who sexually assaulted her, Miami lawyer Jack Swyteck must uncover where the truth lies between innocence, vengeance, and justice in this spellbinding tale of suspense--based on shocking true-life events--from the New York Times bestselling author of Gone Again. According to the FBI, the most dangerous place for a woman between the ages of twenty and thirty is in a relationship with a man. Those statistics become all too personal when Jack Swyteck takes on a new client tied to his past. It begins at the airport, where Jack is waiting to meet his old high school buddy, Keith Ingraham, a high-powered banker based in Hong Kong, coming to Miami for his young daughter's surgery. But their long-awaited reunion is abruptly derailed when the police arrest Keith's wife, Isabelle, in the terminal, accusing her of conspiring to kill the man who raped her in college. Jack quickly agrees to represent Isa, but soon discovers that to see justice done, he must separate truth from lies--an undertaking that proves more complicated than the seasoned attorney expects. Inspired by an actual case involving a victim of sexual assault sent to prison for the death of her attacker, James Grippando's twisty thriller brilliantly explores the fine line between victim and perpetrator, innocence and guilt, and cold-blooded revenge and rightful retribution.

U.S. Attorney General Allison Leahy is the Democrats' best chance for holding on to the Oval Office. But she's running neck and neck with her opponent, Republican Lincoln Howe, a retired four-star general and bona fide African-American hero. Then, days before the election, disaster strikes. Twelve-year-old Kristen Howe, the general's granddaughter, is kidnapped. As the nation's leading law enforcement officer, Allison launches a nationwide manhunt--even as her opponent publicly questions her motives. For Allison, though, finding Kristen isn't about politics. It's a personal crusade that taps into terrifying secrets buried deep within the past--secrets that can shatter all of Allison's hopes, twisting them into a nightmare of lies and the ultimate betrayal.

Harper Lee Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author James Grippando returns with a bold new thriller that asks at what price do we open our lives to Big Data. Aspiring playwright, Kate Gamble, is struggling to launch a script she's been secretly researching her entire life, mostly at the family dinner table. Her father is Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies, a private data integration company whose clients include the CIA and virtually every counter-terrorism organization in the Western World. Kate's father adores her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would be the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. But Kate is compelled to tell this story-not only as an artist exploring the personal information catastrophe that affects us all, but as a daughter trying to understand her mother's apparent loss of purpose, made even more disturbing by the suicide note she left behind: I did it for Kate. Then Patrick Battle comes back into her life, changing everything she has ever thought about her play, her father, and her mother's tragic death. Patrick is a childhood friend, but he is now Buck's golden boy with security clearance to the company's most sensitive projects. When Buck comes under investigation by the Justice Department and Patrick suddenly goes missing, Kate doesn't know who to trust. A phone call confirms her worst nightmare: Patrick has been kidnapped, and the ransom demand is "Code 6"-the most secret and potentially dangerous technology her father's company has ever developed. Kate's fight to bring Patrick home safely reveals a conspiracy and cover up that may implicate one of the most powerful executives in the tech industry, while the development of Kate's play unleashes family secrets and the demons behind her mother's cryptic final note. The two paths converge in explosive fashion, leading to a shocking and terrifying discovery that puts Kate and Patrick in the crosshairs of forces who will stop at nothing to control Code 6.

Miami criminal lawyer Jack Swyteck's beautiful ex-girlfriend Jessie Merrillsold her life insurance benefit for a cash payment when she was diagnosedwith a deadly disease. Now, thanks toJack's courtroom prowess, Jessie can keep the $1.5 million she received. But both Swyteck and those whoexpected to double their investment when Jessie died, it turns out, were dupes of a gorgeous scam artist who was never sick at all. And whenJessie's corpse is discovered in Jack'sbathtub, he's suddenly wanted for murder. Framed and desperate, he's up against the police and a powerfulcriminal consortium willing to go toany lengths to retrieve their money.To save his freedom and his career, Jack must exhume the dark secretsof a buried past. But first he has toescape the murderous vengeance of a cold killer who is beyond suspicion . . .and who wants Jack Swyteck's blood.

An American officer has been murdered on the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and his soon-to-be-accused killer, the dead man's wife, wants Miami criminal attorney Jack Swyteck to represent her. Swyteck knows nothing about military law, and he can sense that thehypnotically beautiful Lindsey Hart isa liar, a blackmailer, and possibly worse. But if he doesn't agree to defend her, he will never get to see his biological son, a child Swyteck never knew existed.Taking on the might of the U.S. military legal machine on hostile foreign soil could prove to be far more than a bad career move, because the shocking, sordid truth will take no prisoners.And no one, especially Jack Swyteck, will escape unscathed.

Two years out of law school, Nick Rey is already on the fast trackat a hot Miami law firm. But hisdreams of success are overshadowed when his father, Matthew, is abductedon a business trip to Colombia.The guerillas demand an impossible$3 million ransom, the exact sum Matthew's kidnap-and-ransominsurance policy covers. The insurance company suspects fraud, however, and refuses to pay. And as Nicksoon learns, it isn't the guerillaswho hold the key to his father'ssurvival. A group of faceless lawyersat a powerful firm has somethingto hide, and will stop atnothing to keep Nick fromdiscovering the truth.

It is the most sensational murder trial since O. J. Simpson. The nation is obsessed with Sydney Bennett, a sexy nightclub waitress and good-time girl accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter for cramping her party life. Agreeing to defend Sydney, Jack Swyteck knew he was taking on the toughest and most controversial case of his career. Millions of TV Jurors have convicted Sydney in the courtroom of public opinion. When the shocking verdict - not guilty - is announced, citizens across the country are outraged and Jack is bombarded by the fallout: angry, profanity-laced phone calls and even outright threats. Media-fed rumors of blood money -purported seven-figure book and movie deals-ratchet up the hysteria, putting put his client and everyone around her at risk. On the night of Sydney's release, an angry mob outside the jail has gathered to serve its own justice. In the frenzy, an innocent young woman bearing a striking resemblance to the reviled Sydney Bennett ends up in a coma. While the media blame Jack and his defense team, the victim's parents reach out to him, requesting his help. They don't believe the attack was the tragic result of random mob violence. Searching for the truth about what happened that night, Jack makes a frightening discovery. Larger and much more powerful forces are working in the shadows ...and what happened outside the jail is a symptom of an evil that infected the show-stopping trial and media-spun phenomenon of Sydney Bennett.

The youngest lawyer ever to grabthe helm of Seattle's most prominentlaw firm, Gus Wheatley has foundsuccess--as well as money, power, and prestige. He thinks nothing can interfere with his meteoric rise to the top.Until his wife, Beth, vanishes.

Beth's disappearance coincides witha series of brutal murders the FBI dubs the "bookend killings." They think Beth is the killer's latest victim . . . or his willing accomplice. But Gusknows his wife would never allyherself with a cold-blooded killer.The further he searches, however, the more he discovers that Beth isn'tthe woman he thought he knew.

Beth may be alive. She may or maynot be innocent. She may havecome up against evil far morereaching than a serial killer. And forGus and his family, that evil ismuch too close to home.

Jack Swyteck and his family are caught in the crossfire after a deadly school shooting claims twenty casualties-Florida's fifth mass shooting in as many years-in this provocative and timely thriller from Harper Lee Prize-winner James Grippando that touches on some of the most contentious issues roiling America today. It is the message every parent of a school-age child fears: "Active Shooter on Campus." Jack Swyteck is at his office when he receives the emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie is in the school's rec center when she hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. A trained law-enforcement officer, Andie knows she's supposed to stay locked down inside the room. But Righley is in her kindergarten classroom and Andie must get her to safety. The tragedy prompts mass hysteria-and dangerous speculation. The police haven't identified the shooter, but they find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a parent, a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. News of the gun and its owner leaks and quickly goes viral. Within minutes Al Qaeda claims responsibility. Andie is shocked-Amir is married to her friend, Lilly, a WASP whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution. When Xavier, Amir and Lilly's oldest child and an eighteen-year-old senior at Riverside confesses to the crime, the local community's anti-Muslim fervor explodes to levels unseen since 9/11. Terrified for her son's life, Lilly asks Jack to step in. A seasoned defense attorney with a passion to see justice done, he's taken on plenty of complicated cases. Xavier's, however, is not one he's inclined to take-until an old friend who lost his daughter in the shooting tells him that he must. With the public calling for blood and prosecutors confident their case is air tight, Jack must unearth the Khourys' family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death. But he may not be able to save everyone-including himself.

As the Electoral College battle for the White House lands in a Florida courtroom, Miami attorney Jack Swyteck has never felt farther from the truth, fighting for a "faithless elector," caught between a corrupt president and his manipulative opponent--with each revelation more explosive than the next. The country is reeling. For the sixth time in American history, the winner of the popular vote will not occupy the Oval Office. President Malcolm MacLeod, the Machiavellian incumbent, was spared from impeachment only because his political foes were certain they would oust him at the ballot box. Now, he appears to have secured a second term, thanks to a narrow victory in the Electoral College. His opponent, Florida Senator Evan Stahl, saw his campaign rocked by allegations of an extramarital affair--with another man. Despite the salacious headline-making scandal and the surrounding media frenzy, most Americans chose Stahl to lead the politically polarized nation. But Stahl is refusing to concede. Backed by millions of supporters, he looks to individual members of the Electoral College to cross party lines. Gun lobbyist Charlotte Holmes is one of Floridas twenty-nine electors who is bound by law and by oath to cast her vote for MacLeod, who won Florida by the thinnest of margins. When Charlotte announces that she intends to vote her conscience and throw the Electoral College to Stahl, the president and his Florida machine haul her into court on felony charges--which, for some, isn't nearly punishment enough. Miami attorney Jack Swyteck is going to use every legal maneuver he can to keep his new client free--and alive. MacLeod's hand-picked prosecutor is determined to prove Charlotte is unfit to cast a vote. Dredging through her past, he's looking for skeletons to humiliate and discredit her, while others with far deadlier intentions have begun acting on their threats. As the pressure mounts, Charlotte and Jack must decide how far they'll go to stand their ground in the stand-your-ground state.

Miami criminal attorney Jack Swyteck doesn't want Tatum Knight as a client. But the allegedly "reformed" contract killer is the brother of Jack's best friend, and the assassin swears he had nothing to do with the shooting death ofSally Fenning, though he claims the beautiful, depressed multi-millionairess wanted him to do the deed. Even so, Knight has been named in Fenning's will, along with five others, all vying for afortune. The catch is that only the last living would-be beneficiary will inherit the $46 million. So begins a twisted game of survival of the greediest and deadliest as, one-by-one, the heirs start to fall. And suddenly Jack's caught upin a chilling race to ensure that thenext to die is not Jack Swyteck.

A Jack Swyteck Novel

An explosive psychological thriller from New York Times bestselling author James Grippando in which Miami's top prosecutor becomes a prime suspect when his wife's disappearance may have a chilling connection to the vicious murders of beautiful women in the Florida Everglades.

Unbelievable was the word for her. Samantha Vine was unbelievably beautiful. It was unbelievable that she'd married me. Even more unbelievable that she was gone . . .

Samantha died too soon. Abe Beckham's new wife, Angelina, feels like Samantha never left. Through it all, Abe has managed to remain a star prosecutor at the Miami State Attorney's Office. But his personal life is a mess, and it's about to get worse.

When a woman's body is discovered dumped in the Everglades, Abe is called upon to stay on top of the investigation. The FBI is tracking a killer in South Florida they call "Cutter" because his brutal methods harken back to Florida's dark past, when machete-wielding men cut sugarcane by hand in the blazing sun.

But when the feds discover that Abe had a brief encounter with the victim after Samantha's death, and when Angelina goes missing, the respected attorney finds himself in the hot seat. Suspicion surrounds him. His closest friends, family, professional colleagues, and the media no longer trust his motives. Was Angelina right? Was their marriage failing because he loved Samantha too much? Or was there another woman, and did Abe have a dark side that simply wanted his new but very unhappy wife gone?

The New York Times bestselling author of Cane and Abe and Black Horizon blends Goodfellas and Elmore Leonard in this wild, suspenseful caper inspired by actual events, in which a band of amateur thieves pulls off one of the biggest airport heists in history with deadly consequences.Every week, a hundred million dollars in cash arrives at Miami International Airport, shipped by German banks to the Federal Reserve. A select group of trusted workers moves the bags through Customs and loads them into armored trucks.Ruban Betancourt has always played by the rules. But the bank taking his house and his restaurant business going bust has driven him over the edge. He and his wife deserve more than life has handed them, and he's come up with a ballsy scheme to get it. With the help of an airport insider, he, his coke-head brother-in-law, Jeffrey, and two ex-cons surprise the guards loading the armored trucks and speed off with $7.4 million in the bed of a pickup truck.Investigating the heist, FBI agent Andie Henning, newly transferred to Miami from Seattle, knows the best way to catch the thieves is to follow the money. Jeffrey's drug addiction is as conspicuous as the Rolex watches he buys for dancers at the Gold Rush strip club. One of the ex-cons, Pinky Perez, makes no secret of his plan to own a swinger's club--which will allow him carte blanche with his patrons' wives. Levelheaded Ruban is desperately trying to lay low and hold things together.But Agent Henning isn't the only one on their trail, and in the mob-meets-Miami fashion, these accidental thieves suddenly find themselves way in over their heads . . . and sinking fast.

Three summers after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe--the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history--oil is again spewing into the ocean, from a drilling explosion in Cuban waters just fifty miles away from the Florida Keys. The situation is politically complex, involving a state-run consortium tied to the Venezuelan, Chinese, and Russian governments, and highly -volatile. The Cubans not only refuse offers of American -assistance, but threaten to fire on "hostile" U.S. vessels that enter their waters.

Attorney Jack Swyteck and his new wife, Andie, an operative for the CIA, are honeymooning in the Keys when Andie is called away on an undercover assignment. Jack, too, is soon back at work--representing a client whose husband was on the rig. Though the spill occurred in foreign territory, the widow wants Jack to file a wrongful death suit in a U.S. court. Pursuing the unimaginably complicated case plunges Jack into a dangerous world filled with treacherous twists that lead him to a shocking realization . . . his case and Andie's assignment may be lethally connected.

The nation is obsessed with Sydney Bennett, a sexy nightclub waitress and good-time girl accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter. It is the most sensational murder trial since O. J. Simpson, and the shocking "not guilty" verdict creates an immediate uproar.

On the night of Sydney's release, an angry mob gathers outside the jail and in the frenzy, an innocent young woman bearing a striking resemblance to the reviled Sydney Bennett ends up in a coma. While the media blame her lawyer Jack Swyteck and his defense team, the victim's parents reach out requesting his help. They don't believe the attack was a tragic accident.

Searching for the truth, Jack makes a frightening discovery. Larger and much more powerful forces are at work, and what happened outside the jail is a symptom of an evil that infected the show-stopping trial and media-spun phenomenon of Sydney Bennett.