Definitely a thriller and one that I could hardly put down. The ending totally ruined everything going for the book. Here are all my gripes.1. Formatting was off. Typos galore. Words were changed all over the place. Not sure if it was due to bad editing or a bad job of transferring the book to an e pub format. But it got noticeably worse towards the end of the book. One chapter had a glitch on almost every page.2. The story felt like a John Grisham wanna be and failed very short of that goal. The beauty of Grisham novels are they could, conceivably, be real life. You bring powerful and corrupted people together who want to keep a secret and bad things happen. But this book just couldn't make anything come together on that level. For example: [spoiler alert] Jack realizes someone completely outside his case, has accessed the criminal investigation file. Something that only the police, judge and prosecution/defense lawyers can get to. The guy turns out to be a real estate lawyer whose wallet and ID cards were stolen. The antagonist had stolen the wallet and gotten access to the file by pretending to a lawyer for the defense. The ridiculous part is [another spoiler] the antagonist ends up being a corrupt prisoner interrogator for Fidel Castro that escaped to the US disguised as a refugee. How would someone like that know the laws like that? Coming from Cuba, wouldn't he just muscle or buy his way to the file? Would going to the work of stealing a wallet even make sense? No, it does not. The character development is not consistent nor believable. Which leads me to point three.3. The antagonist was ridiculous - completely and utterly contrived and fake. A Cuban bad guy with a grudge for his fallen brother. Out to get Jack and his dad. Um, wouldn't he just torture them and kill them, which would have been more consistent with his character arch? The cat and mouse game just did not fit for him. Plus, throwing the gratuitous retired secret service guy for seven pages who just so happens to know exactly who the Cuban is? Again, ridiculous. The story and characters fell completely flat in this book. I would never recommend it to anyone.
Tightly plotted legal thriller (crossed with a serial-killer novel). Courtroom scenes rival Grisham's best; out-of-courtroom action (of which there's plenty) remains believable even when it gets wild. Begs for a movie treatment: the Miami and Key West locations are sumptuously evoked. With one notable exception--a woman whose many illogical actions, though crucial to the story, are never properly explained to my satisfaction--Grippando succeeds in making the main characters' motivations, strengths, and weaknesses more realistic than many of his genre peers manage to do, and he has a deft touch in describing minor characters. Given that this was Grippando's first novel, I will overlook the generally pedestrian dialogue for now, and hope that he has developed more polished skills in that area over the numerous books he has written since this one debuted in 1994. Unquestionably, he shows promise, and I'll be watching for more recent offerings to see if that promise has been fulfilled.
Do You like book The Pardon (1995)?
Another strong book. There were some moments (which didn't take away from the good story) which were a little unrealistic. In the book, the main character, a defense lawyer, needs a defense lawyer of his own as he has been indicted for murder. The conversations between the two get a little iffy when the lawyer's lawyer has to explain certain aspects of the law to him. The main character would already know this, it is really for the reading audience. Kind of a catch-22, if you don't explain this, the readers could get lost in a lot of legal jargon, if you do explain it during the dialog, it's just not realistic.Solid story from start to finish, lots of twists and turns. Highly recommended.
—Scott Bagley
I have a four month old infant who still gets up in the middle of the night to eat. I have recently read a few books that would almost instantly put me back to sleep. This one however kept my attention even at 4 AM!I loved the Jack and Harry conflict throughout this book. It is sad to think that a father and son would have such a poor relationship for so long and over such a "silly" thing. However, it really made the story that much more gripping when the "bad guy" played on the damaged relationship. I liked it.I also liked the love story/triangle between Jack, Gina and Cindy on the side. It kept the characters more realistic and impulsive because all of love triangles make fore interesting stories. OK, maybe not all but this one did.The "killer" was ruthless! I loved that he was so cold and heartless. The author kept his identity a mystery until the very end. I was so glad he ended up not being any of the characters I liked because I would have cried. The ending had a little twist at the end that I found a little cheesy. It was just a little too far fetched for me to believe. Still a great book.Quite a lot of me least favorite word. Some sexual innuendo.
—Kelly
A decent first effort, though I hope the other books get better. There are parts that are too silly, cliche or unrealistic. The ending was far too pat for me to believe. This mystery was one that seemed to strive to just be entertaining and not one to think about too hard. If you can do that, you can enjoy the book. I probably would not have finished it if it weren't such a fast read and if I wasn't interesting in reading the Swytack series (assuming they get better). I've read one of Grippando's more recent efforts, and I remember it being much better. We shall see...
—Mindy Williford nelson
