Jack Swyteck

24 primary works • 29 total works

The Pardon

by James Grippando

Published 23 August 1994

After getting a confessed killer off on a technicality, brilliant young defense attorney Jack Swyteck, estranged son of Governor Harry Swyteck, a proponent of the death penalty, finds himself framed for murder.

Beyond Suspicion

by James Grippando

Published 20 August 2002

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.

Criminal lawyer Jack Swyteck doesn't handle many civil cases. But this one is different. His client, Jessie Merrill, is a gorgeous ex-girlfriend who's being sued.

At the trial, Jack pulls off a brilliant victory and Jessie gets a hefty settlement. But then Jack finds out it was all a scam. Two days later, Jessie's body turns up floating 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 is beyond suspicion.

--Publishers Weekly

Beyond Suspicion CD Low Price

by James Grippando

Published 7 February 2006

Last to Die

by James Grippando and Nick Sullivan

Published 1 July 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

by James Grippando

Published 27 July 2004

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.

Got the Look

by James Grippando

Published 1 January 2006

After his girlfriend is kidnapped, Miami attorney Jack Swyteck discovers that she is married to a wealthy man who has received a ransom demand, pitting Jack against a killer who is so fiendishly clever that even Jack may have met his match.

Got the Look CD

by James Grippando

Published 3 January 2006

When Darkness Falls

by James Grippando

Published 2 January 2007

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

by James Grippando

Published 18 December 2007

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

by James Grippando

Published 2 December 2008

Intrepid Miami attorney Jack Swyteck comes to the aid of his former governor father as he investigates the suspicious hunting death of the vice president.

Afraid of the Dark

by James Grippando

Published 1 March 2011

"Grippando has definitely reached a new level with this series entry...One of his best." -Booklist (starred review) 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

by James Grippando

Published 8 January 2013

"A nation is obsessed with Sydney Bennett, a hot nightclub waitress accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter for cramping her party life. It's the most watched trial since O.J. Simpson, and millions of "TV Jurors" have convicted Jack's client in the arena of public opinion. The shocking verdict--not guilty--creates an immediate uproar, from angry phone calls to outright threats. Media-fed rumors of "blood money" in the form of seven-figure book and movie deals put Sydney and everyone around her at risk. On the night of Sydney's release, the angry mob outside the jail demands its own justice. A young woman ends up dead in the frenzy, her only crime being that she bears a striking resemblance to Sydney Bennett. The media blame Jack and his defense team, but to Jack's surprise, the victim's parents reach out to him. With Jack's help, they believe they can prove that their daughter's death wasn't just a random mob tragedy. Something bigger and more organized is at work, and what happened outside the jail that night is a symptom of the evil that infected the show-stopping trial and media-spun phenomenon of Sydney Bennett"--

Black Horizon

by James Grippando

Published 4 March 2014

"It's devu, with a big twist. Three summers after the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history, millions of gallons of oil are again spewing from a hole in the ocean floor. But this rig explosion was in Cuban waters, just 50 miles away from Florida, and the situation is complex. The consortium doing the work is state-owned Venezuelan, Chinese and Russian, controlled by a mineral lease from the Cuban government. And the Cubans not only refuse assistance from the U.S., they also vow to fire on "hostile" American vessels that enter Cuban waters. Enter Jack Swyteck, who's honeymooning with his new wife Andie in the lower Keys. As an ominous black slick appears in the water, CIA agent Andie is called back to an undercover assignment. So Jack heads to Key West to see his buddy Theo Knight. There Jack is transformed from bystander to player in the unfolding oil catastrophe when he takes on a client whose husband was on the rig that blew up. She wants Jack to file a wrongful death in U.S. court. Taking on this unimaginably complicated case pitches Jack into a dangerous world, only to find that his case and Andie's assignment may be lethally connected"--

Gone Again

by James Grippando

Published 1 March 2016

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"... 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...

The Most Dangerous Place

by James Grippando

Published 21 February 2017

Jack signs on to defend an old school friend's wife who is accused of murdering her college rapist, but he finds the case unexpectedly complicated by the woman's tortured family history and conflicting testimony from an ex-boyfriend.

Most Dangerous Place [Large Print]

by James Grippando

Published 28 February 2017

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.

A Death in Live Oak

by James Grippando

Published 17 January 2018

"When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the preeminent black fraternity at Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the stygian swamps of the Suwanee River, his death sets off a firestorm. And when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime, the fire threatens to rage out of control. Contending with rising political tensions, racial unrest, and a sensational media, Towson's defense attorney, Jack Swyteck, knows that the stakes could not be higher--inside or outside the old Suwanee County Courthouse. 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 today, he'll find it--no matter the cost--and bring much-needed justice to Suwanee County."--Dust jacket.

The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

Published 5 February 2019

A Death In Live Oak [Large Print]

by James Grippando

Published 20 May 2019

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, Towson'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.

The Big Lie

by James Grippando

Published 25 February 2020

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.