No one was as surprised as James Grippando when he indicated in the Acknowledgements of his latest book that MOST DANGEROUS PLACE is his 25th novel.

During this time, dating back to 1994, Grippando has grown significantly as a writer and master plotter, and the Jack Swyteck series of legal thrillers just gets better and better. At the start of MOST DANGEROUS PLACE, attorney Jack Swyteck is waiting at the Miami Airport to meet his old friend, Keith Ingraham. Keith has made it in the world of international finance and is returning from Hong Kong with his wife and young daughter.  Jack is very surprised to hear that, upon touching down, Keith's wife, Isabelle Bornelli, was arrested.

Jack jumps right in and quickly learns from the prosecutor that Isabelle, or “Isa,” is being held for conspiracy to murder in the death of a man who allegedly raped her back in college. What makes this arrest particularly inconvenient is the fact that the family was flying to the states so their six-year-old daughter, Melany, could undergo a complicated surgical procedure to fix a defect in her ears.

"I guarantee that nothing will prepare you for the explosive and unpredictable ending that will leave you reeling long after the final reveal is unveiled."

Jack has a one-on-one with Isa at the detention center in which she is being held. It is here where she recounts the dreadful experience she suffered in college when Gabriel Sosa raped her in her dorm room. The college officials did next to nothing, so it was believable that Isa might have been driven to take matters into her own hands. It did not help her case to know that her father, Felipe, was a notorious figure in Venezuela with ties to the likes of Hugo Chavez.

Jack is unable to promise Keith and Isa that he could have her free on bail in time for Melany's surgery. So imagine the surprise when Jack receives a call from them post-surgery to find that Isa was not only free on bail but had been sprung by another attorney, Manny Espinosa. Jack admits that merely referring to Manny as “slick” would be giving him too much credit. He is not eager to have a co-counsel on this case.

It is at this point that MOST DANGEROUS PLACE begins to spin wildly out of control with the plot twisting pretty much chapter by chapter. Even the most astute readers of mysteries or legal thrillers will be unable to stay ahead of the brilliant plot twists Grippando has in store in this potboiler of a read. The book gets its title from a saying that goes: “The most dangerous place for a woman to be is in a relationship with a man.”

New characters are introduced, plotlines are blurred beyond recognition, and not one but two court cases emerge over Isa’s initial arrest. The courtroom scenes are some of the most suspenseful I've ever read and easily called to mind the early works of John Grisham and Scott Turow. Grippando's backyard is southern Florida, and Jack is the main man on the legal scene there. I guarantee that nothing will prepare you for the explosive and unpredictable ending that will leave you reeling long after the final reveal is unveiled.

MOST DANGEROUS PLACE is highly recommended and hopefully gains Grippando wider readership for one of the best legal thriller series on the market.