Black Horizon (Jack Swyteck Series #11)

by James Grippando

Overview

In Black Horizon, a riveting and timely thriller drawn from tomorrow's headlines, New York Times bestselling author James Grippando brings back popular Miami criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck in an international case involving a devastating oil spill that pits him against his most villainous adversaries yet.

Three summers after the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, oil is again spewing into the ocean—from a drilling explosion in Cuban waters sixty miles off the Florida Keys, creating a politically complex and volatile situation. Representing an American woman whose Cuban husband was killed on the rig, Jack finds himself in dangerous waters when he discovers that his incendiary case may be lethally connected to his new wife Andi's undercover assignment for the FBI . . . and that the looming environmental catastrophe may have been no "accident" at all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062109880
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/04/2014
Series:	Jack Swyteck Series , #11
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

James Grippando is a New York Times bestselling author of suspense. He was a trial lawyer for twelve years before the publication of his first novel, The Pardon, in 1994. He is now counsel at the law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and an adjunct professor of law and modern literature at the University of Miami School of Law. His novels are enjoyed world-wide in twenty-eight languages, and his novel Gone Again won the 2017 Harper Lee Prize in Legal Fiction. He lives in South Florida.

Hometown:

Coral Gables, Florida

Date of Birth:

January 27, 1958

Place of Birth:

Waukegan, Illinois

Education:

B.A. with High Honors, University of Florida, 1980; J.D. with Honors, University of Florida, 1982

Website:

http://www.jamesgrippando.com

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/13/2014
Bestseller Grippando draws inspiration from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill for his fantastic 11th Jack Swyteck novel (after 2013’s Blood Money). Criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck and his new wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, cut short their honeymoon in the Florida Keys after an explosion on Scarborough 8, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, results in a massive crude oil spill. Andie returns to Washington, D.C., where FBI higher-ups suspect sabotage was involved in the disaster. Back in Florida, Jack agrees to represent Bianca Lopez, the widow of a Cuban man killed on the rig, in a wrongful-death suit. In a concerted effort to get the case dismissed, the Chinese-Russian-Cuban oil consortium that owns the rig claims that Bianca’s marriage doesn’t exist. As Jack pursues the truth, he is kidnapped in Cuba and later threatened with disbarment by the FBI. Finely crafted dialogue and a realistic yet nuanced hero make this thriller a standout. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

10/01/2013
Following a drilling explosion in Cuban waters, not so far from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, attorney Jack Swyteck finds himself representing a woman whose husband died on the oil rig. Grippando's 21st novel.

Library Journal

2014-02-02
In Grippando's fast-moving 21st, an oil-rig disaster drags Florida lawyer Jack Swyteck into lawsuits against everyone in the known universe. Since American corporations can't enter into agreements to explore the Caribbean waters off Cuba, the Cubans themselves, partnering with Russian, Chinese and Venezuelan interests, have launched the Scarborough 8, a behemoth platform assembled in China, to search for oil deep beneath the seas. That search ends when an explosion aboard the rig kills derrick worker Rafael Lopez and 15 other workers and unleashes a massive spill American relief forces are powerless to stem. As oil slicks approach the Florida Keys, Jack, his honeymoon already interrupted when his bride, undercover agent Andie Henning, is called away for another hush-hush FBI operation, reluctantly agrees to help Rafael's widow, Bianca, prosecute her wrongful-death suit against the owners of Scarborough 8. In the story's irresistible middle section, Jack dukes it out in a Key West courtroom with Luis Candela, the lawyer representing Petróleos de Venezuela, who throws up one roadblock and smokescreen after another, including a stunner: Bianca can't have been legally married to Rafael at the time of his death because he was engaged to Josefina Fuentes, a boxer he'd known since his childhood in Havana. Candela's allegation is the cue for legal quiddities to dissolve into a wild third-act scramble for the truth that takes Jack and his old friend (and ex-client) Theo Knight on a trip to Cuba, then to the Bahamas, where Theo is framed for murder. Think nothing else can go wrong? Think again. Perhaps the most successful of Jack's 11 cases (Blood Money, 2013, etc.). As usual, the characters are sketched in only lightly, but readers immersed in the rewardingly complex tangle of political/legal problems sparked by the Deepwater Horizon disaster—sorry, the Scarborough 8 disaster—will never notice.

Kirkus Reviews

A briskly paced thriller…The complex plot points combined with the breezy narrative—not to mention the Florida Keys setting—make for a solid beach read that will no doubt leave longtime fans looking forward adventures of Jack Swyteck.

Houston Chronicle on Black Horizon

James Grippando is a master of the legal thriller.

Robert K. Massie

With a story that’s ripped from the recent headlines (remember the 2010 BP oil spill?), this is a solid legal thriller that should appeal to the author’s fans.

Booklist on BLACK HORIZON