I have followed James Grippando from the start of his literary career, and he continues to show why he was so deserving of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction that he received in 2017. His novels, particularly those featuring Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck, are stellar and can stack up against any legal thrillers on the market.

Each entry in this series presents something new and unique, and GOODBYE GIRL is no exception. This time, the topic is the ever-popular piracy debate surrounding individuals who illegally download music and those who profit from it. However, before we delve into this complicated issue, we need to take a brief step back in time for an unsolved murder that will play a major role in the book’s ensuing action.

"GOODBYE GIRL is suspenseful from start to finish, and readers’ heads will be spinning in much the same way as Jack’s with all of the unexpected turns the plot takes."

Before she married Jack, FBI agent Andie Henning worked on a case involving a body that was found outside of the swamps of Biscayne Bay, Florida. It was tied to a piling and had the words “goodbye girl” written across the abdomen. The individual was identified as Tyler McCormick, but the perpetrator and the motive still remain unknown.

In the present day, Jack is thrown into an unlikely case where he must defend Grammy-winning pop star Imani Nichols, who is battling record executive and ex-husband Shaky for the monetary rights to her work. Thanks to a prenuptial agreement, she had signed over the bulk of the rights to Shaky; now that they are separated, she is paying the price for her ignorance over the contract. To defy him and reap some reward, Imani has gone public with the mantra “go pirate” concerning the music she made when they were together. The hope is that he sees less profit due to the promotion of illegal downloading.

Jack soon will learn that the case is not nearly as cut and dried as it seems. Some international music pirates based in Russia may be providing Imani with substantial kickbacks for her old catalog of songs that are being pirated. Furthermore, Shaky may not be the clean-living victim as information about his various perversions is exposed during the trial. The proceedings get especially interesting when Jack receives an anonymous phone call suggesting that he question Shaky on the stand about Tyler McCormick.

Meanwhile, Andie is called back to this same cold case, causing a major rift between her and Jack. To make matters worse, Jack's friend and confidant, ex-con/local bar owner Theo Knight, gets wrapped up in a kidnapping attempt, along with a rapper friend of Imani. Jack is called to London to bail Theo out, but the feds get to him first and realize that protection is needed as the Russian underworld is not at all happy about what almost went down.

While all of this is going on, a serial killer known as Judge re-emerges on the scene and may be the very same killer who started with the “goodbye girl” slaying years earlier. A handful of similar deaths domestically and in the UK have occurred, all with his unique signature, and the connection may be that each victim was a significant modern-day music pirate.

GOODBYE GIRL is suspenseful from start to finish, and readers’ heads will be spinning in much the same way as Jack’s with all of the unexpected turns the plot takes. James Grippando continues to write top-notch thrillers with a firm grounding in the legal world that are never dull and always unpredictable.