Jack Swyteck series by James Grippando (epub)

James Grippando is a New York Times best-selling author of 20 novels, which are enjoyed worldwide in twenty-six languages.
James's first job out of law school plunged him headlong into death penalty cases. That experience was an inspiration for his 1994 debut novel, The Pardon, a legal thriller that critics heralded as a "bona fide blockbuster." Beyond Suspicion (2002) was the long-awaited sequel to that first novel, and it launched an exciting series that features Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck and his irreverent sidekick, Theo Knight. Blood Money (HarperCollins, Jan. 2013) is the tenth novel in the Jack Swyteck series. James's writings also include "Leapholes" for young adults and numerous short stories.

As a trial lawyer, James was an avid writer. His numerous scholarly articles appeared in some of nation's top law reviews, and they are frequently cited with approval by the courts. His trial practice ranged from complex corporate litigation to class actions on behalf of chicken farmers. As a frequent volunteer in Florida's guardian ad litem program, he helped provide legal representation to neglected children in family court proceedings. He was a faculty member with the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at Nova Southeast University. He was named by Florida Trend Magazine as one of Florida's emerging leaders, and in 2006 he received the Distinguished Author Award from Scranton University. His alma mater is the University of Florida, where he graduated second in his undergraduate class and earned his law degree with honors. He now serves Of Counsel to David Boies' law firm, Boies Schiller & Flexner, LLP.

James lives and writes in Coral Gables, Florida, and he is married to Tiffany, who has been his unofficial editor since book one.

Books

The Pardon (Jack Swyteck #1)

A brilliant Miami defense attorney, Jack Swyteck has spent years rebelling against his father, Harry, currently the governor of Florida. Their relationship is strained to the limit when Harry allows one of Jack's clients to die in the electric chair—a man Jack firmly believed was innocent. But now they will have to put their mutual animosity on a back burner, because a psychopath driven by his own twisted version of justice has placed both father and son in extreme harm's way. With no one to turn to but each other, Jack and Harry must work together to overcome the sinister manipulations of a brilliant and bloodthirsty tormentor?or they will die together as the stakes are raised to higher and more terrifying heights.

Beyond Suspicion (Jack Swyteck #2)

For smart, tough Miami criminal lawyer Jack Swyteck, it was a golden opportunity to help out his beautiful ex-girlfriend Jessie Merrill, who sold her life insurance for a cash payment when she wrongly believed she was dying. Now, thanks to Jack's courtroom prowess, Jessie can keep the $1.5 million she received. But it turns out that Swyteck and the insurance company are both victims of a gorgeous scam artist. And when Jessie's lifeless corpse is discovered in his bathtub, the attorney is suddenly wanted for murder. Framed and desperate -- on the run from the police and a powerful criminal consortium willing to go to any lengths to retrieve the money -- Jack must exhume the dark secrets of a buried past to save his freedom, his career, and his life. But even his unique legal skills cannot keep him out of the murderous sights of a cold killer -- one who wants Jack Swyteck's blood . . . and is beyond suspicion.

Last to Die (Jack Swyteck #3, 2003)
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.

Hear No Evil (Jack Swyteck #4)

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 is a 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.

Got the Look (Jack Swyteck #5)

Jack Swyteck’s new girlfriend,Mia, is keeping secrets from thelove-struck Miami attorney,not the least of which is a wealthy and powerful husband. Then Miais kidnapped by a manipulativeabductor who makes a chilling ransom request, “Pay me what she’s worth.” Now Jack’s the one underthe gun, since Mia’s spouse has decided his unfaithful wife is worth nothing. Time is of the essence, and if Jack picks the wrong number,Mia could end up like thekidnapper’s other victims: dead.

Operation Northwoods (Jack Swyteck #5.5)

Short story published in the anthology Thriller: Stories to Keep you Up at Night edited by James Patterson
Readers of the Jack Swyteck series know that Jack is a self-described half-Cuban boy trapped in the body of a gringo. That's a glib way of saying that Jack's Cuban-born mother died in childbirth, and Jack was raised by his father and stepmother, with no link whatsoever to his Cuban heritage. Grippando is not Cuban, but he considers himself an "honorary Cuban" of sorts. His best friend since college was Cuban born and that family dubbed him their otro hijo, other son. Quite remarkable, considering that Grippando grew up in rural Illinois and spoke only "classroom" Spanish. When he first arrived in Florida, he had no idea that Cubans made better rice than the Chinese, or that a jolt of Cuban coffee was as much a part of midafternoon in Miami as thunderclouds over the Everglades. He'd yet to learn that if you ask a nice Cuban girl on a date, the entire family would be waiting at the front door to meet you when you picked her up. In short, Grippando- like Jack Swyteck-was the gringo who found himself immersed in Cuban culture.

In Hear No Evil, the fourth book in the Swyteck series, Jack Swyteck travels back to Cuba to discover his roots. Naturally, he runs into a mess of trouble, all stemming from a murder on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Grippando prides himself on his research, and threw himself into all things Cuban when researching the thriller. At the time it was impossible to speak to anyone about the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay without the problem of the detainees dominating the conversation. It was then that Grippando came across a forty-year-old plan--Operation Northwoods--which, in the hands of someone with an extremely devious mind, could cause a mountain of trouble.

So was born this story.

In Operation Northwoods, Jack and his friend, Theo Knight, find themselves in the heat of a controversy after an explosion at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba--an explosion that rocks the world.

When Darkness Falls (Jack Swyteck #6)

From the moment Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is called upon to defend a new client, a homeless man jailed for threatening to jump off a bridge, it's obvious something is amiss. For one thing, the man called Falcon manages to come up with the $10,000 bail . . . in cash. Then the body of a brutally murdered woman is found in the trunk of the abandoned car he's living in.
But it isn't until a panicked Falcon takes a group of innocent people hostage, including Jack's best friend, and barricades himself and his prisoners in a motel room that Swyteck realizes how much is truly at stake. For Falcon has a bigger agenda than suicide, and Jack Swyteck must get to the root of a dark history and bitter secrets before Falcon decides he has nothing to lose by killing them all.

Last Call (Jack Swyteck #7)

A kid from Miami's meanest streets, Theo Knight lost his mother to a violent crime. He was on Death Row for a murder he didn't commit when lawyer Jack Swyteck proved him innocent. Now they are best friends. Theo is a semi-respectable and successful bar owner, but yesterday, with its risks and its terrors, has come knocking on his back door. An escaped convict from the old neighborhood wants sanctuary, and, in return, he is offering information: the identity of the killer who left Theo's mom lying dead in the street on a hot South Florida evening.

Theo wants justice, but the answers are not simple. He and Jack must now piece together a twenty-year-old conspiracy of greed and corruption that's pointing them toward the city's most elite and powerful. And digging through a past that Theo has struggled his whole life to forget could awaken some very desperate, very deadly sleeping dogs.

Born to Run (Jack Swyteck #8)

When the U.S. Vice President dies unexpectedly during a hunting trip in the Everglades, the President selects his friend, former Florida governor Harry Swyteck, to fill the vacant position. Called to Washington to serve as his father's legal advisor, Jack Swyteck has mixed feelings about working so closely with the parent he's been at odds with in the past. Jack's duty, however, as a son and as an American, takes top priority.
But the vipers are restless in the D.C. snake pit. A fifty-year-old secret is unraveling, and a cover-up at the highest levels of government threatens to drag both Swytecks under. When hostages are taken, Jack must get to the root of the evil and quickly because suddenly no one is safe, and the presidency itself hangs in the balance.

Afraid of the Dark (Jack Swyteck #9)

A young girl’s murder sets off a grisly cascade of crime, death, and intrigue—and sends criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck after a sinister group of terrorists on the verge of unleashing chaos across the globe. From New York Times bestseller James Grippando, the ninth Jack Swyteck novel, Afraid of the Dark—perfect for fans of Steve Martini, Phillip Margolin, and Jo Nesbo—is a rollercoaster thrill ride into the very heart of evil.

Blood Money (Jack Swyteck #10)


New York Times bestselling author James Grippando delivers a powerful, nonstop thrill ride ripped from the headlines. Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is back in his most frightening case yet, and this time the price of victory is measured in blood.
It is the most sensational murder trial since O. J. Simpson's. 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. When he had agreed to defend Sydney, Jack Swyteck knew he'd be taking on the toughest and most controversial case of his career.

Millions of "TV jurors" have convicted Sydney in the court of public opinion.
When the shocking verdict of 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 Jack's 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.