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Over the New Year's weekend I had James Grippando's latest Jack Swyteck thriller, GOT THE LOOK, velcroed to my hands and eyes. Grippando is a fine storyteller, a skill he has displayed over the course of what is now ten novels --- and he has reached, as per usual, a new pinnacle with this latest installment.
In GOT THE LOOK Swyteck falls in love with the woman of his dreams: a beautiful, classy lady named Mia Salazar who, he abruptly discovers, is married to someone else. Being the class act that he is, he terminates the relationship, tales of abuse and lovelessness notwithstanding. When Mia is kidnapped a few weeks later, however, Swyteck is abruptly and reluctantly drawn back into the investigation by Mia's husband and, more significantly, by FBI agent Andie Henning. The kidnapper's modus operandi is to take someone and then send to the spouse a note stating "Pay me what she's worth." If the husband gets the dollar amount right, then his wife is released unharmed; get it wrong and she becomes a murder victim.
What complicates matters is that the FBI believes that Mia may have a remote tie to her kidnapper. Swyteck is torn between following the FBI's plan and making up one of his own along the way. Theo Knight, Swyteck's former client and permanent best friend, is there to assist him. Between Theo, Mia, the Wrong Number Kidnapper, and a complex, intriguing and original plot with more than the expected number of twists and turns, one tends to forget about Swyteck even when he is front and center. Someone else more interesting is always around.
Swyteck's somewhat diminished standing should not prevent or deter you from reading GOT THE LOOK from cover to cover in one sitting. As always Grippando's descriptive skills are first-rate. Case in point: near the end of the book I became so claustrophobic that I actually had to stop reading for a moment and go outside to escape the feeling of trapped confinement that had crept in and settled under my skin. I won't divulge any more details about that; if you have any functioning nerve endings left in your body, you'll know what I'm talking about when you read it.
Even during lulls in the action, where the setting is a greasy spoon diner or Swyteck's office, Grippando's ability to describe the scene and set the mood is equaled by few. Given that his abilities seem to multiply from book to book, GOT THE LOOK undoubtedly will increase Grippando's core readership, regardless of readers' fondness for Swyteck. Recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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