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Book Talk Tuesday – a newly discovered mystery writer.

I found a mystery novelist that I’ve added to my regular reading rotation: James Grippando.

Grippando’s first published novel, The Pardon, was released in hardcover in September 1994, where he first introduced the character Jack Swyteck, a Miami criminal defense lawyer.

Grippando grew up in Illinois before his family relocated to Florida, where he attended college and then law school. His first job out of law school was clerking for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. That was followed by twelve years as a trial lawyer in Miami.

Like John Grisham, Grippando bases his fiction around the law, featuring the Swyteck character undertaking the seemingly impossible cases. There are now twenty books in the series. I started with his most recent book, The Right to Remain (2026). I dislike starting a series deep into a series, but sometimes it works out that way.

After finishing The Right to Remain, I sought to find the start of his Swyteck series. Hopefully, this will be a series that keeps me coming back for more. What interests me is tightly-wound, realistic and imaginative storytelling with characters that aren’t always the smartest people in the room, who are flesh and blood, and takes me somewhere I’ve never been before. Is that a lot to ask?

The Right to Remain was a chance find. I saw it at the public library and grabbed it, not knowing anything about the author or the book. I was very pleased with the story, the pacing and the style of delivering the clues. My only criticism was the use of Swyteck’s wife as a “B” plot in the story, while it connected to the main plot, it was clunky and almost a distraction. The character is an FBI agent who works undercover on her own cases, and seems to be there to provide some dramatic tension to Swyteck’s life. I’m into see how this character plays out in other books.

If I were grading the book: B+