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A Novel of Suspense
A fallen baseball star must use his new skills as Boston's king of sports radio to outwit a dangerous caller and prove—live and on the air—that the hit-and-run that killed his wife was no accident.
Ryan James once had it all. With a beautiful wife and a two-year-old daughter, he was just one minor-league baseball game away from realizing his lifelong dream of playing in the majors when the unthinkable happened: his wife, Chelsea, was killed in a hit-and-run accident while driving to Ryan's last game of the season.
Years later, Ryan is a popular "shock jock" at Boston's top-rated sports radio show, doing his best to raise his daughter alone. But his love for Chelsea endures, his insomnia persists, and the fact that the police never found the drunk who ran her off the road makes closure impossible. Then, on the third anniversary of Chelsea's death, chilling words from an anonymous tipster turn the accident into a homicide: "I know who did it."
As the police scramble, Ryan makes a stunning discovery. The tip—a strangely coded message—may have come from Chelsea's own brother, a young man affectionately known as "Babes," who has an autism-related disorder. But why would Babes have withheld this information for three years? And what finally made him come forward anonymously?
The demand for answers sends Babes on the run. Through a series of shocking on-air conversations with Babes, Ryan and Emma Carlisle, the dedicated prosecutor on the case, unravel a cover-up that reaches back to the night of Chelsea's death and that may implicate one of New England's most powerful families. It's a search that will forever change the lives of Ryan, Babes, and Emma—if they live to tell about it.
"Unpersuasive plot contrivances and clunky prose add up to a pedestrian effort from a writer who's done better work." - Kirkus Reviews
"Grippando readers who know him mostly from the Swyteck series may find themselves thinking: wow, this guy is really good." - Booklist
This information about Intent to Kill was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Jeffrey Camp
James Michael Grippando was born in rural Illinois and attended the University of Illinois and the University of Florida. He graduated to become a trial lawyer for twelve years before Grippando turned to writing thrillers. He is the bestselling author of at least sixteen novels, including When Darkness Fall, Got the Look, Hear No Evil, and Last to Die, which are enjoyed worldwide in more than twenty languages. He lives in Florida.
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