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Summary
Summary
Jack Swyteck and his family are caught in the crossfire after a deadly school shooting claims twenty casualties--Florida's fifth mass shooting in as many years--in this provocative and timely thriller from Harper Lee Prize-winner James Grippando that touches on some of the most contentious issues roiling America today.
It is the message every parent of a school-age child fears: "Active Shooter on Campus."
Jack Swyteck is at his office when he receives the emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie is in the school's rec center when she hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. A trained law-enforcement officer, Andie knows she's supposed to stay locked down inside the room. But Righley is in her kindergarten classroom and Andie must get her to safety.
The tragedy prompts mass hysteria--and dangerous speculation. The police haven't identified the shooter, but they find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a parent, a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. News of the gun and its owner leaks and quickly goes viral. Within minutes Al Qaeda claims responsibility. Andie is shocked--Amir is married to her friend, Lilly, a WASP whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution.
When Xavier, Amir and Lilly's oldest child and an eighteen-year-old senior at Riverside confesses to the crime, the local community's anti-Muslim fervor explodes to levels unseen since 9/11. Terrified for her son's life, Lilly asks Jack to step in. A seasoned defense attorney with a passion to see justice done, he's taken on plenty of complicated cases. Xavier's, however, is not one he's inclined to take--until an old friend who lost his daughter in the shooting tells him that he must.
With the public calling for blood and prosecutors confident their case is air tight, Jack must unearth the Khourys' family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death. But he may not be able to save everyone--including himself.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Grippando's subpar 17th thriller featuring Florida defense attorney Jack Swyteck (after 2020's The Big Lie) opens with a harrowing scene. Swyteck's daughter, Righley, goes to kindergarten at Riverside Day School, and his FBI agent wife, Andie, is attending a parents' event there when a gunman kills more than a dozen people. Righley and Andie, who rushed to Righley's classroom, are traumatized but uninjured. Andie is later stunned when 18-year-old Xavier Khoury, the son of a close friend, confesses to the shooting. Swyteck reluctantly accepts Xavier as a client, in the hopes of getting him multiple life sentences instead of the death penalty, at the behest of a parent who lost a child but wants to avoid drawn-out court battles. Meanwhile, Andie is put on the hot seat when Riverside seeks to avoid liability for the incident. Despite Xavier's confession, Swyteck pursues the possibility that it was false. The characters are paper-thin, and an over-the-top reveal undermines any suspension of disbelief. Grippando has done better. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (Jan.)
Booklist Review
A shooting at a Florida school counts 20 wounded or dead. Among the students, but thankfully not among the victims, is Jack Swyteck's daughter. When a fellow student (the son of a Muslim man) confesses to the shootings, Jack, a defense attorney, initially refuses to take his case. But then he's persuaded to change his mind by an unlikely person: the parent of a child who died in the shootings. The Swyteck novels have always incorporated complex, sometimes controversial subjects, and this one tackles a tragically hot topic. School shootings have been in and out of the news for the past few years, and, to his credit, Grippando doesn't sensationalize the issue. He presents an evenhanded, intelligent discussion structured, of course, around a smartly plotted mystery. It should be noted, too, that the novel's characters are fully realized and abundantly human, not the stick figures spouting talking points one finds in much hot-topic fiction. Even with nearly 30 books under his belt, Grippando shows no signs of falling into a rut.
Library Journal Review
It's tragedy enough that there is another mass school shooting, but events at Riverside Day School in Florida have terrible complications for Miami attorney Jack Swyteck. His daughter attends the school; his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, is there when the bullets start flying; and, with Al-Qaeda claiming responsibility, Xavier, son of Jack and Andie's friends Amir and Lily Khoury, confesses to the crime. Now Jack is set to defend Xavier. With a 75,000-copy first printing.
