Jack Swyteck

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.

Fans of John Grisham's legal thrillers will love the suspenseful action and intriguing courtroom drama of James Grippando's best-sellers. In The Pardon, Grippando delivers a scorching tale of vengeance that stains the sultry streets of southern Florida. Miami defense attorney Jack Swytek has long rebelled against his father, Harry, now Florida's governor. The two disagree on nearly everything, especially the death penalty. And when Harry allows one of Jack's clients-a man Jack believes is innocent-to die in the electric chair, their estrangement seems complete. But when they are faced with a psychopath's twisted game of vengeance, father and son have nowhere to turn but to each other. Like Under Cover of Darkness and Found Money, The Pardon showcases Grippando at his sizzling best. Narrator Ron McLarty voices all the dramatic tension, both in and out of the courtroom.

Jack Swyteck, a brilliant Miami defense attorney has spent years rebelling against his father, Harry, now Florida's governor. Their estrangement seems complete when Harry allows one of Jack's clients -- a man Jack believes is innocent -- to die in the electric chair. But when a psychopath bent on serving his own twisted version of justice places both Jack and Harry in extreme jeopardy, the two have nowhere to turn but to each other. Together they must find a way to overcome their cunning tormentor's manipulation . . . even as the stakes are being raised to far more perilous heights.

After six exciting thrillers in seven years, bestselling author James Grippando is at last bringing back the main character from his blockbuster debut novel, The Pardon. Miami lawyer Jack Swyteck is in trouble. With more than a decade of experience in the criminal courts, Jack doesn't handle many civil cases. But this one is different. His ex-girlfriend is being sued because she thought she was going to die. When Jessie Merrill was diagnosed with a deadly disease, she worked a deal with an insurance company to get cash fast. In exchange, a group of wealthy investors were supposed to collect on the policy at her death. But Jessie was misdiagnosed, and the investors want their money back. Now. At the trial, Jack pulls off a brilliant victory and Jessie gets to keep the $1.5 million from the investors. Two days later, her body turns up in Jack's bathtub. As the evidence mounts against him, Jack finds himself on a collision course with dark secrets from the past and a possible killer who is beyond suspicion. Performed by Tom Wopat.

After six exciting thrillers in seven years, best-selling author James Grippando is at last bringing back Miami lawyer Jack Swyteck, the main character from his blockbuster debut novel, The Pardon. This time he has his work cut out for him in civil court-defending his ex-girlfriend.

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

Tatum Knight is a former contract killer. And he's Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swytek's newest client. Tatum is the older brother of Jack's best friend, Theo. Theo himself spent time on death row until Jack found the evidence to prove him innocent. Jack isn't so sure about Tatum. A gorgeous young woman has been shot dead in her Mercedes on a Miami street. Sally Fenning was worth forty-eight million dollars when she died. Money had never made her happy, so she left it all to her enemies -- left it for them to fight over, that is. She named six heirs in her will, but no one gets a penny until all but one of the heirs is dead. Jack alone knows that heir number six -- Tatum Knight -- is a professional killer. As the heirs begin to fall, Jack and his sidekick Theo are in a race against time to discover if Tatum is behind all the killing. Or is someone even more frightening, more dangerous the odds-on favorite to be the last to die?

As a favor to his best friend Theo, Miami lawyer Jack Swytek reluctantly agrees to represent Tatum Knight, Theo's brother. Tatum is a thug-a hit man who claims he's gone straight. Tatum tells Jack that a woman named Sally Fenning hired him to kill her but he swears he refused the job. Now Sally is dead and she's named Tatum in her will, along with five other people, all of whom she had reason to hate. The catch is, the only one who will inherit the $46 million is the last one standing. Suddenly people are dying, and Jack has to find out if his client is an innocent man or a killer.

When a beautiful woman is accused of murdering her husband, there is only one person she wants to represent her-Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck. What begins as a simple assignment, however, swiftly lurches into a twisting thrill-ride of unanswered questions and mounting suspicions on Jack's part. For the victim's husband was an officer at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay and the son of a prominent Cuban exile-and her story changes with the breeze. With no experience in military justice and his faith in the honesty of his client tested at every turn, Jack embarks on a trial that will task all his reserves of knowledge and bring him face to face with the ultimate surprise witness.

A beautiful woman is kidnapped, and a chilling ransom demand is sent to her wealthy husband. FBI agent Andie Henning is up against a unique breed of serial kidnapper. Enter Jack Swyteck. He has a new girlfriend, and life is good-until Mia Salazar goes missing. Then the bottom falls out. Jack finds out his lover is married. Worse, her rich husband gets a ransom demand that pegs Mia as the kidnapper's next victim. Worst of all, her husband knows about her affair with Jack, and he decides to pay the kidnapper exactly what his cheating wife is worth: nothing. Throughout, nothing is what it seems, and Jack is in for a twisty ride if he's to find the madman before someone else dies.

Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck isn't looking for a new client, at least not one who is homeless and in jail for threatening to jump off a bridge. But from the moment Jack is called to defend the man, who calls himself Falcon, something is amiss. For one thing, Falcon comes 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 in which he is living. Panicked and on the run, Falcon takes Jack's best friend, Theo, as hostage. They end up barricaded in a motel room, and Theo isn't the only one at Falcon's mercy. Jack has to work with the cops and their crackerjack hostage negotiator to free Theo and the other hostages before Falcon decides he has nothing to lose by killing them all. But what Jack doesn't know is that Falcon has a much bigger agenda-and that people behind the scenes will stop at nothing to keep their dangerous secrets. Thus unfolds a lightning-paced, impossible-to-put-down story, as only James Grippando can tell it.

Many years ago, Jack Swyteck saved Theo Knight's life. Theo grew up on the streets of Miami's roughest neighborhood and lost his mother to a violent crime. Although his uncle Cy tried his best to raise him right, by the time he was a teenager, Theo was on death row for a murder he didn't commit. Jack was the lawyer who proved him innocent. Now a successful bar owner, Theo has turned things around. But he needs Jack's help again, this time more than ever. An escaped convict from the old neighborhood shows up at Theo's back door, asking for help. In return, he'll finger the man who murdered Theo's mother. But the answers aren't so simple, and soon Theo's own life is in danger. Jack and Theo must piece together a twenty-year-old conspiracy of greed and corruption that leads to the very top of Miami's elite, while revisiting a past that Theo has tried hard to forget. But Theo also has the opportunity to seek the revenge that has fueled him since the day he found his mother dead in the street on a hot Miami night. Last Call is a brilliant and bullet-fast thriller, complete with revelations that no reader will ever forget.

Bestselling author James Grippando is back with another innovative and action-packed thriller featuring the ever-popular Jack Swyteck. Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck guards his own family secrets as closely as anyone, and while his father's two terms as Florida's governor made some family rifts public, things are finally better between the two men. Whenever Harry Swyteck asks for Jack's help, he gets it, and suddenly he needs it more than ever before. When Harry's friend, the vice president of the United States, goes hunting for alligators in the Everglades and winds up dead, the president positions Harry to be his new VP. Harry immediately turns to Jack to be his lawyer. The prestige that comes from the position turns dangerous, however, when Jack finds himself caught up in the heart of a complicated cover-up that spans nearly fifty years and across the globe. Before hostages can be released, an old secret must be revealed, one that could threaten the life of the president of the United States himself.

The New York Times bestselling author's ever-popular hero, Jack Swyteck, is on his most dangerous case yet, uncovering a sinister underground world that has him racing across the globe. Then: Sergeant Vince Paulo held his best friend's daughter, McKenna, bleeding in his arms as she uttered the name of her murderer and ex-boyfriend, Jamal. That was minutes before a blast made everything go black for Vince-forever. Now: Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck has been called in to save Jamal from the death penalty for terrorist activity. Despite urgent warnings from his fiancée, undercover FBI agent Andie Henning, to stay away from the case, Jack finds himself inextricably drawn to Jamal's past-even believing his alibi that he was abducted and held in a black site in Prague at the time of McKenna's death. But if Jamal is innocent, then the man who murdered McKenna and took Vince's sight is still out there . . . free. Soon bodies begin to pile up and ghosts from the past reappear very much alive, confirmed by ominous threats from a faceless man known only as "the Dark." Vince and Jack must confront a mortal danger that goes beyond McKenna's death, across international waters-a journey to piece together the past that leads through the back alleys of London, onto illegal Internet sites, and straight into the mind of pure evil.

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.

Miami attorney Jack Swyteck finds himself in the middle of an international legal battle over a Cuban oil spill that sets him on a deadly mission. Three summers after the Deepwater Horizon environmental catastrophe, oil is spewing into the ocean again, this time from a drilling explosion in Cuban waters just fifty miles from the Florida Keys. The slick is headed straight for the United States, but the Cubans refuse American offers to assist with the cleanup, and threaten to fire on "hostile" U.S. vessels entering their waters. Backstopping the Cubans is the powerful consortium that owned and operated the rig, and is tied to the Chinese, Russian, and Venezuelan governments, who stonewall all inquiries and relief efforts. Jack and his new wife, Andie Henning, an undercover agent for the FBI, are honeymooning in the Keys when Andie is called away on an assignment shrouded in secrecy. Jack, too, is soon back at work, representing an American woman whose Cuban husband was killed in the rig explosion. Though the spill occurred in foreign waters, Jack draws on all his legal know-how to file a wrongful death suit in a U.S. court and hopefully bring the young widow a semblance of closure. Jack's pursuit of the unimaginably complicated international case plunges him into a dangerous world filled with treacherous twists that lead him-and Andie-to the same shocking realization . . . that the looming environmental disaster may have been no "accident" at all.

Winner of the 2017 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction In this electrifying and fast-paced tale of suspense from the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Cash Landing, Cane & Abe, and Black Horizon, Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck takes on 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.

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.

From the 2017 winner of the Harper Lee Prize for legal fiction comes a powerful and timely story of race, politics, injustice, and murder as shocking and incendiary as today's headlines. When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the pre-eminent black fraternity at the Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the Stygian water swamps of the Suwanee River Valley, the death sets off a firestorm that threatens to rage out of control when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime. Contending with rising political tensions, racial unrest, and a sensational media, Townson's defense attorney, Jack Swyteck, knows that the stakes could not be higher inside or outside the old Suwanee County Couthouse. The evidence against his client, which includes a threatening text message referencing "strange fruit" on the river, seems overwhelming. Then Jack gets a break that could turn the case. Jamal's gruesome murder bears disturbing similarities to another lynching that occurred back in the Jim Crow days of 1944. Are the chilling parallels purely coincidental? With a community in chaos and a young man's life in jeopardy, Jack will use every resource to find out. As he navigates each twist and turn of the search, Jack becomes increasingly convinced that his client may himself be the victim of a criminal plan more sinister than the case presented by the state attorney. Risking his own reputation, this principled man who has devoted his life to the law plunges headfirst into the darkest recesses of the South's past, and its murky present, to uncover answers. For Jack, it's about the truth. Traversing time, from the days of strict segregation to the present, he'll find it no matter what the cost and bring much-needed justice to Suwanee County.

Miami attorney Jack Swyteck lands in the heart of the contentious immigration debate when he takes on the heart-wrenching case of an undocumented immigrant who fled to America to protect her daughter and save herself, in this timely and pulse-pounding thriller that explores the stories behind the headlines from New York Times bestselling author James Grippando, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. Julia Rodriguez and her teenage daughter Beatriz escaped bloodthirsty gangs, random violence and, Julia's abusive husband back in El Salvador. Arriving in Miami, mother and daughter struggled to carve their own piece of the American dream. While life in the States is hard, it is safer, until Julia's rejects her boss's unwanted sexual advances. Suddenly-thanks to an "anonymous" tip to U. S. immigration authorities-she is arrested, locked in detention with criminals, and slated for deportation. Jack's only viable legal move to save her is asylum-a long shot that's become nearly impossible in today's charged political climate. When Julia and Beatriz made the perilous trek north to freedom, they thought they'd left the danger behind them. But now, even Miami isn't safe. A ruthless enemy may have tracked them to south Florida and is biding time, patiently waiting to strike. In a case where the stakes have never been higher, Jack Sywteck may not be able to save his client-even if he wins.

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.

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.

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.

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.