Publisher: Harper Audio (Audiobook – 14 January 2025)
Series: Jack Swyteck – Book 19
Length: 10 hours and 53 minutes
My Rating: 4.5 out 5 stars
One of the top authors of intense legal thrillers, James Grippando, returns with another outstanding entry in his long-running Jack Swyteck series, Grave Danger, which places the titular protagonist in the middle of a particularly captivating case.
Of the various crime fiction subgenres I have the pleasure of reading, one of my favourites is the legal thriller. There is just something exciting and addictive about well-written and thrilling books set around the courtroom, especially if they feature complex or life-altering legal cases. While there are several great authors who specialise in legal thrillers, one of the more intriguing ones I have come across in recent years is veteran author James Grippando, who has been writing compelling novels for over 30 years, with a combination of long-running series, including his main Jack Swyteck series, and other gripping standalone reads. I personally only started reading Grippando last year when I had the opportunity to read his latest Jack Swyteck novel, Goodbye Girl, a fascinating read that saw the titular Miami lawyer attempt to save a glamorous popstar from several music piracy-related lawsuits. Goodbye Girl was one of the more entertaining and memorable legal thrillers I read last year, and I was keen to try out the next book in the series, Grave Danger, especially as it had an intriguing plot behind it.
Plot Synopsis:
Bestselling author James Grippando’s legendary criminal defence 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 defence. 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.
James Grippando continues to impress with this fantastic and exciting new legal thriller. Cleverly set around some unique legal circumstances and compelling world-politics, Grave Danger had an outstanding plot loaded with a ton of drama that is guaranteed to hook you all the way to the end.
I felt that Grippando pulled together a very interesting and emotionally charged narrative for Grave Danger, which quickly drags you in with its unique and powerful elements. The main story primarily involves protagonist Jack Swyteck choosing to defend Iranian refugee Ava Bazzi in a custody case around her daughter Yasmin, with the Iranian government backing Yasmin’s father Farid in the case. However, as the case proceeds, it becomes clear there are more angles to the story, mostly related to whether Jack’s client is Yasmin’s mother, and whether the real Ava Bazzi is alive or has been killed by the Iranian morality police. At the same time, Jack is dealing with deeper personal issues as his career has put a strain on his marriage with Andie, who once again is facing pressure from her bosses to influence Jack’s case. As the various trials continue, both Jack and Andie uncover deeper lies and conspiracies from all the participants in the case, including the United States government influencing events from behind the scenes, and Grave Danger’s narrative goes in some very interesting directions. Grippando wraps the story up with some excellent twists, which includes some tense action and danger, and readers come away satisfied with the conclusion and curious where certain long-running story points in the series will go next.
Grave Danger was another well-written novel from Grippando that provides readers will all the entertaining legal thrills and courtroom drama you could want. Serving as the 19th entry in the Jack Swyteck series, Grave Danger works well as a continuation of the series, especially when it comes to the personal drama of the protagonists. At the same time, Grippando has an accessible style which allows new readers to enjoy this novel without any prior knowledge of his previous books. There are a lot of great elements to this new novel, although I personally enjoyed all the outstanding courtroom sequences, which prove to be a true highlight of the book. The author clearly puts a lot of care, attention and personal knowledge into all the legal aspects of Grave Danger, and you really get drawn into the complex aspects of the case and the protagonist’s attempts to help his client.
I personally enjoyed how Grippando featured a complex, international custody case in this book, which gave Grave Danger a very distinctive edge, especially as it features some obscure bits of law. The author’s intriguing dive into US-Iranian relations and how this would potentially impact a case like this was also very fascinating, especially with certain recent real-world events happening around the time I was reading this novel. Grippando covers all these events in a measured and thoughtful manner, and the underlying political and diplomatic elements of the plot added a lot of fantastic tension to the overall narrative and helped turn Grave Danger into a particularly compelling read.
One of the more interesting elements of Grave Danger are the compelling or relatable characters featured within the plot. Primarily focused on Jack Swyteck, a lawyer struggling with draining personal battles on top of his own legal case, the book has some interesting sequences with the protagonist, especially as he deals with the lies of his client and the emotional strain of the case on his marriage. The rest of the cast was quite entertaining or complex, including Jack’s client, Ava Bazzi, who has escaped from Iran with her daughter/niece, and who seeks to keep custody no matter the cost. Ava’s various secrets add some deep intrigue to the plot, and Grippando builds some intricate storylines around her, especially with the reveal of who she is and the greater history behind Ava’s treatment by the Iranian morality police. The opposing client, Farid, Ava Bazzi’s husband and the father of Yasmin, proves to be an interesting semi-antagonist in the novel, especially with his alternating motivations and a particularly vindictive lawyer in his corner.
While I enjoyed all these characters, I must say that I had issues with how Grippando utilised Jack’s wife, FBI Agent Andie Henning, in this novel. Despite being Grave Danger’s secondary protagonist (and the titular protagonist of another series), Grippando somehow manages to make Andie into one of the most annoying figures in the entire novel with her unreasonable requests around her husband’s work, constant combative nature, and sheer determination to get her way. The author compounds this further by portraying her in this book as being particularly naïve, constantly ignoring several obvious conspiracies and lies actively working against her husband, despite her status as an FBI agent. I honestly felt that Grippando’s portrayal of Andie was a real weak point of Grave Danger, and I struggled a little bit with her scenes. Hopefully the author will utilise her a little more effectively going forward, as her appearance here just added way too much unnecessary drama to an otherwise excellent book.
After enjoying Grippando’s previous novel on audiobook, I made sure to get Grave Danger on the same format, primarily because it once again featured the narration of Jonathan Davis. One of my favourite audiobook narrators, Davis is probably best known for his work voicing various Star Wars audiobook, including Kenobi by John Jackson Miller, Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schreiber, Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray, Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp and Brotherhood by Mike Chen, just to name a few. This excellent voice work translates across to the Jack Swyteck series extremely well, and I deeply enjoyed his work on Grave Danger. Not only does he bring the perfect pace to the court cases and other high-intensity parts of the plot, but he also provides some great voices to the varied characters featured within. I ended up breezing through Grave Danger’s near 11-hour long runtime because of this great narration, and the audiobook version comes very highly recommended as a result.
Overall, Grave Danger was another excellent novel from James Grippando, who continues his excellent Jack Swyteck series in impressive fashion. Featuring a particularly compelling legal centre, as well as some great thriller elements, Grave Danger was an amazing read from start to finish, and I fully intend to read more novels in this series going forward. Indeed, the 20th Jack Swyteck novel, the extremely interesting sounding The Right to Remain, is coming out in early 2026, and I cannot wait to read it.
The Unseen Library 