Intent to Kill: A Novel of Suspense

by: James Grippando

Published by: Harper Collins

Reviewed by Bob Pike CSP-CPAE – Speakers Hall of Fame

How can you not like anything written by someone born in Waukegan, Illinois and who graduated from Antioch Community High School. The answer (for someone like me, born in Chicago and a graduate of Grant Community High School in Fox Lake, Illinois) is – you can’t.

Grippando makes the rare departure from his best-selling Jack Swyteck series to bring us the compelling story of Ryan James, a minor league pitcher who had it all – beautiful wife Chelsea, a gorgeous and bright two-year-old old daughter–and one game away from moving to the Boston Red Sox.

Then Chelsea is killed in a hit-and-run car accident as she drives with their daughter to Ryan’s final game of the season. The driver of the other car is never found, and Ryan never recovers–his insomnia drives him from the game he loves, and five years later the only things he has time for are his daughter and his job as co-host of Boston’s hottest “shock-jock” radio program.

That all changes in an instant when, on the anniversary of Chelsea’s death the police find a coded tip which says, “I know who did it.” The nature of the tip leads police to believe that it came from Chelsea’s brother “Babes,” who suffers from an autism-related disorder.

Readers had better hang on to their hats as on-air conversations with Babes, new clues that point to one of New England’s most prominent families, and other deaths send Ryan and the original prosecutor on the case, Emma Carlisle scrambling to protect Jack’s family, find Babes, who is on the run, and uncover the real killer – all before it’s too late.

A real page-turner that will almost make you forget Jack Swyteck.

Armchair Interviews says: A superb suspenseful crime thriller from Illinois’ on James Grippando.

Author’s Web site: http://www.JamesGrippando.com