Biography

James Grippando was born in Waukegan, Illinois

Waukegan, Illinois

Waukegan is a city and county seat of Lake County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 87,901. The 2010 population was 89,078. It is the ninth-largest city in Illinois by population...

 and raised in rural Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

.

In his first job out of law school Grippando served as law clerk to the Honorable Thomas A. Clark, United States Court of Appeals

United States court of appeals

The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...

 for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta. There and in private practice Grippando worked on a number of appeals in death penalty cases, an experience that later served him in writing his first published novel, The Pardon. From September 1984 to September 1996, Grippando was a trial lawyer in Miami. In a David vs. Goliath legal battle that lasted seven years, Grippando served as lead counsel on behalf of Florida chicken farmers in a case that was "the catalyst for wholesale change in the $15 billion-a-year [poultry] industry."

As a lawyer, Grippando wrote numerous scholarly articles. In the late 1980s, he shifted to creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

, but his first attempt at fiction was never published. A near arrest in a case of mistaken identity sparked an idea for a new novel about a man accused of a murder that he may not have committed. Grippando's first published novel, The Pardon, was released in hardcover in September 1994, where he first introduced the character Jack Swyteck, a Miami criminal defense lawyer. Grippando wrote one more novel while still practicing law: The Informant (October 1996.) He then left the law to write full time, and a string of novels followed: The Abduction (1998); Found Money (1999); Under Cover of Darkness (2000); A King's Ransom (2001); Beyond Suspicion (2002); Last to Die (2003); Hear No Evil (2004); Got the Look (2006); Leapholes (for young adults) (2006); When Darkness Falls (2007); Lying with Strangers (2007); Last Call (2008); Born to Run (2008); Intent to Kill (2009); Money to Burn (2010); and Afraid of the Dark (2011) . Beyond Suspicion marked the return of character Jack Swyteck, and since then, all but Leapholes, Lying with Strangers, Intent to Kill and Money to Burn have been in the Jack Swyteck series.

Leapholes, Grippando's first novel for young adults, was also the first novel for young readers ever to be published by the American Bar Association

American Bar Association

The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...

. That same year (2006), Grippando's first short story, Operation Northwoods, was published in an anthology (Thriller: Stories to Keep you Up at Night Thriller (book)

Thriller (book)

Thriller is a compilation of 30 thriller short stories edited by James Patterson.-James Penney's New Identity by Lee Child:In Laney, California, a man named James Penney is fired after seventeen years on the job. Infuriated, James burns down his house and starts a new life. However, the fire had...

) with other top thriller writers.

Grippando writes outdoors at his south Florida home, and most of his novels are set in Florida, chiefly in Miami. He writes novels of suspense in the genre of crime fiction

Crime fiction

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

, including psychological thrillers and legal thrillers, many of which draw upon his experiences as a trial lawyer. Since 2004 he has served as "Counsel" in Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, a national law firm headed by trial lawyer David Boies

David Boies

David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...

. Grippando's novels have been published in twenty-six languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Chinese (simplified), Croatian, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Spanish, Serbian, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian.

Fiction

• The Pardon (Jack Swyteck #1, 1994)
• The Informant (1996)
• The Abduction (1998)
• Found Money (1999)
• Under Cover of Darkness (2000)
• A King’s Ransom (2001)
• Beyond Suspicion (Jack Swyteck #2, 2002)
• Last to Die (Jack Swyteck #3, 2003)
• Hear No Evil (Jack Swyteck #4, 2004)
• Got the Look (Jack Swyteck #5, 2006)
• Leapholes (2006) (young adult novel
  Young adult literature
  Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
  
  )
• When Darkness Falls (Jack Swyteck #6, 2007)
• Lying with Strangers (2007)
• Last Call (Jack Swyteck #7, 2008)
• Born to Run (Jack Swyteck #8, 2008)
• Intent to Kill (2009)
• Money to Burn (2010)
• Afraid of Dark (Jack Swyteck #9, 2011)

Short stories

• "Operation Northwoods" (2006, Thriller (book)
  Thriller (book)
  Thriller is a compilation of 30 thriller short stories edited by James Patterson.-James Penney's New Identity by Lee Child:In Laney, California, a man named James Penney is fired after seventeen years on the job. Infuriated, James burns down his house and starts a new life. However, the fire had...
  
  , a collection of 30 short stories from International Thriller Writers
  International Thriller Writers
  International Thriller Writers, Inc., was founded October 9, 2004, at a meeting at Bouchercon World Mystery and Suspense Conference in Toronto, Canada. Six months later, some 150 authors with more than one billion books sold worldwide had joined the organization as founding members.Co-founders...
  
   Association, edited by James Patterson
  James Patterson
  James B. Patterson is an American author of thriller novels, largely known for his series about American psychologist Alex Cross...
  
  )
• "Death, Cheated" (The Prosecution Rests (Little, Brown 2009)), anthology of short stories from Mystery Writers of America
  Mystery Writers of America
  Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....
  
  , edited by Linda Fairstein
  Linda Fairstein
  Linda Fairstein is an American feminist author and former prosecutor focusing on crimes of violence against women and children. She served as head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office from 1976 until 2002 and is the author of a series of novels featuring Manhattan...
  
  

Non-fiction

Nonfiction (Scholarly)

• "Condominium Rulemaking: A Call for Substantive Judicial Review in Florida," University of Florida Law Review (1982)
• "Declining to Exercise Extraterritorial Antitrust Jurisdiction on the Grounds of *International Comity," University of Virginia Journal of International Law (1983)
• "Warsaw Convention--Federal Jurisdiction and Air Carrier Liability for Mental Injury," *The George Washington Journal of International Law (1985)
• "Attorney-Client Privilege: Implied Waiver through Inadvertent Disclosure of *Documents," University of Miami Law Review (1985)
• "Fear of Flying--The Fugitive's Fleeting Right to a Federal Appeal," Fordham Law Review (1986)
• "Don't Take it Personally--Limited Liability for Attorney Shareholders," Florida State University Law Review (1987)
• "Circuit Court Review of Orders on Stays Pending Appeals," the American Bankruptcy Law Journal (1988)
• "Caught in the Non-act: Expanding Criminal Antitrust Liabiltiy for Corporate Officials," The Antitrust Bulletin (1989)

Nonfiction (Magazines and Newspapers)

• "Writing the Good Book on Lawyers" (ABA Journal
  ABA Journal
  The ABA Journal is a monthly legal trade magazine and the flagship publication of the American Bar Association. It claims to be "read by half of the nation's 1 million lawyers every month"...
  
   November 1994)
• "The Quest: Five or Six (Hundred) Easy Steps to Overnight Success" (Mystery Scene Magazine Summer 2004)
• "Animal Attraction: A Tribute to my Co-Author, a Dog Named Sam" (Miami Herald, February 12, 2006)
• "Five Years After the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September, American Author Says 'Thanks, Mates'" (Goodreading Magazine (Australia), Sept. 2006)
• "Untitled (But Carolyn Marino Would Know What to Call It)" (Publishers Weekly
  Publishers Weekly
  Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
  
  , June 2008)

Grippando in Popular Culture

• On June 14, 2005, A James Grippando Novel was the clue for 38 Across in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle (Answer: “Under Cover of Darkness”)

Awards

• 2005 Distinguished Author Award, University of Scranton
  University of Scranton
  The University of Scranton is a private, co-educational Catholic and Jesuit university, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the northeast region of the state. The school was founded in 1888 by Most Rev. William O'Hara, the first Bishop of Scranton, as St. Thomas College. It was elevated to a...
  
  .
• 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist (Leapholes)
• 2010 Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal (Money to Burn)

External links

• James Grippando’s homepage