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. A Death in Live Oak: A Jack Swyteck Novel (Harper) is his latest novel. When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the pre-eminent black fraternity at the University of Florida, is discovered hogtied in the Stygian water swamps of the Suwanee River Valley, the death sets off a firestorm that threatens to rage out of control when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime. The evidence against his client seems overwhelming. Then Jack gets a break that could turn the case. Jamal’s murder bears disturbing similarities to another lynching that occurred back in the Jim Crow days of 1944. Are the chilling parallels purely coincidental? With each twist and turn, Jack is convinced that his client may be the victim of something even more sinister than the case presented by the state attorney. For Jack, it’s about the truth. And he’s determined to find it, no matter what the cost.
