Defense attorney Jack Swyteck finds himself involved in custody case that crosses over into international relationships between the U.S. and Iran. A young girl is moved (maybe kidnapped) from Iran by her aunt and her father wants custody to return her to Iran. We learn quite a bit about how women are considered secondary in Iran and the importance of keeping their hair covered along with dangers of rebellion. Jack's wife Andie works for the FBI and Jack's role is in direct conflict with Andie's involvement with the case. There's lots of courtroom legal manuvers that may confuse readers but the plot continues to move along at decent pace. Fans of television's The Lincoln Lawyer (and the books by Michael Connelly) will do well to choose this novel by an outstanding author.

Fans of political fiction will enjoy this intriguing legal story. Lots of twists and turns as criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck defends his client for illegally taking her ‘daughter’ from Iran to Florida. Things are not as they appear in many instances. Everyone, including his FBI wife wants Jack to not investigate the death of Ava as tensions between the US and Iran teeter. Loved learning about The Hague convention. Highly recommended!!

When I reviewed James Grippando’s Twenty (in 2020), I noted that I couldn’t recall reading any of James Grippando’s books. And when reading about that title, Jack Swyteck wasn’t a guy I felt like I knew (despite that one being #17 in Grippando’s Jack Swyteck series). Jack Swyteck, the protagonist of that book and many others that I had missed for some unknown reason, is a criminal defense attorney who lived in Florida with his FBI Agent wife Andie Henning and their daughter Righley, and I REALLY liked that book (solid four stars).

In the latest Swyteck novel, Grave Danger, Swyteck has a new client with a case that includes a complex plot with interesting characters, and involves politics and international diplomacy along with more standard crimes such as kidnapping. The woman who hires him fled Iran to Miami with her daughter, and was subsequently accused of kidnapping by her husband. In order to keep the child’s father from taking the girl back to Tehran, Swyteck needs to build his case under international law as well as proving that returning the child to her father would definitely put her at risk.

In addition to this, he finds out that the woman who is his client, claiming to be worried about her daughter, is really the child’s aunt and that her sister, the child’s biological mother, may have been killed by Iran’s morality police. But one big question is what was the father’s role in his wife’s death? And if that isn’t enough, why is Jack’s wife Andie (an FBI Agent) being pressured to try to get Jack to drop the case? Yikes. Jack’s effort to figure out who is behind all this, and how politics (both in the U.S. and internationally) seems to be about to destroy all his work on the case? AND can Jack and Andie’s relationship survive them being on opposite sides in this whole mess?

It’s a LOT. A lot of great storytelling and writing, with plenty of suspense and some total surprises. I loved it. Highly recommended. With thanks to Harper and NetGalley, this one gets five stars.

Great book from a reliably-thrilling author. I thought I had it figured out two separate times and I was still wrong.