Blood money

The latest Jack Swyteck legal thriller begins with a controversial not-guilty verdict, a violent act that leaves a young woman in a coma, and accusations of corruption leveled at Jack himself. His client, a woman accused of murdering her daughter because the girl impinged on her carefree lifestyle, is acquitted, but Jack knows there's a lot more to the case than he's been allowed to reveal in court. And after a woman who looks startlingly like his client is beaten nearly to death, Jack discovers that this was no weirdly coincidental act of violence but rather a result of something hidden behind the media spectacle surrounding the trial. After a few lethargic Swyteck novels, the author charged back in 2011 with Afraid of the Dark, and this one is similarly energetic, with a story that's full of twists and turns and, not incidentally, some well-aimed criticisms of the way high-profile trials are covered by the news media. A timely and very well executed story.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

The real-life Casey Anthony case provides the spark for bestseller Grippando's melodramatic 10th legal thriller featuring Florida attorney Jack Swyteck (after 2011's Afraid of the Dark). When Swyteck wins an acquittal for his client, Sydney Bennett, a sleazy nightclub waitress accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter, whose badly decomposed remains were found in a plastic bag near the Everglades, the unpopularity of the verdict provokes an assault on Celeste Laramore, fresh from a Sydney Bennett look-alike contest at a South Beach bar, outside the women's detention center where Sydney was due to be released. Celeste's distraught parents persuade Swyteck to sue cable news company BNN, one of whose reporters initially misidentified Celeste, now in a coma, as Sydney outside the jail, and the state corrections department. Meanwhile, a brutal man targets those close to Swyteck as a way of getting him to back off looking for the truth. Readers expecting character growth may be disappointed, but series fans should be satisfied. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The courtroom verdict is only the beginning of the fireworks in Jack Swyteck's 10th appearance before the Miami bar. "There's no such thing as a perfect client," reflects Jack (Afraid of the Dark, 2011, etc.), and he should know. Against all odds, the jury has found hard-partying Sydney Bennett not guilty of murdering her toddler daughter Emma. But even before the Shot Mom, as TV commentator Faith Corso has dubbed her, is released from prison, a crowd Corso has stirred into a frenzy has mobbed the prison gates in the dead of night, and coed Celeste Laramore, who's made herself up to look just like Sydney, is mistaken for her, attacked by someone in the crowd and sent into a coma. The Shot Mom herself, secretly released shortly thereafter, is spirited off in a private jet after warning Jack not to write the tell-all book he's urged her not to write either. After Celeste's parents persuade Jack to file lawsuits against the prison and the Breaking News Network, he finds himself up against BNN's fearsome hired gun Ted Gaines, who uses every trick in his legal arsenal to counterattack. Jack, who's taken on the work pro bono, is slapped with a gag order, threatened with stiff legal sanctions when he's accused of violating that order and beaten by a dark figure who tells him that he'll retaliate against someone Jack loves if Jack doesn't flush Sydney from wherever she's hidden herself. When the jury foreman confesses to taking a $100,000 bribe in return for freeing Sydney, Miami-Dade County prosecutor Melinda Crawford joins the legion of people who really want to know where Sydney is and are sure they can press Jack to tell them. The criminal behind this fine mess is a cipher, but Grippando turns the screws on Jack so comprehensively that exhausted readers, turning the last page long after midnight, won't mind.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.