Gone Again: a Jack Swyteck Novel

By James W. Ziskin

James Grippando has been thrilling fans since his debut Jack Swyteck novel, The Pardon, in 1994. His twenty-fourth book. GONE AGAIN, is out March 1, and it's an emotionally complex powerhouse of a story. Jack Swyteck is back, older and wiser than he was all those years agone. He's returned to his one-time stomping grounds, the Freedom Institute, and is instantly drawn into a expiry row instance that presents both conflicts of censor and a race against the clock. GONE Again breaks the stereotypes associated with missing-teen stories. This is an original, a classic.

I got the chance to discuss Grippando'due south latest with him and snuck in a few other questions about his writing as well.

GONE Once more is the eleventh in this addictive series. How do you keep Jack fresh?

I introduced readers to Jack in The Pardon equally an ideological and somewhat naïve xx-vii yr old lawyer whose love life could accept filled an entire volume of "Cupid's Rules of Love and State of war—Idiot's Edition." In other words, there was a lot of room for Jack to grow. He and his second wife are expecting their get-go kid in GONE Over again, and he'south taking on the kind of cases that you would expect an accomplished criminal defense force lawyer to handle. Readers have loved watching him "grow up," and there's more to come.

GONE Again explores the fallout of a harrowing adoption horror story. Sashi Burgette, the teenaged girl at the eye of GONE AGAIN, bears deep, emotional scars that her adoptive parents are ill-equipped to handle. Best intentions aren't enough to spare the family devastating pain and suffering. Can y'all tell united states about reactive attachment disorder or RAD, the syndrome that afflicts Sashi?

RAD is a mental disorder that is normally caused by astringent neglect or abuse early in life. The most serious cases are orphaned children from war-torn countries. Their false belief that they are incapable of being loved continues through adolescence and into adulthood. It was a challenge to develop a character like Sashi, because RAD children are the consummate opposite of what you look of children. If a parent tried to hug her, kid with RAD would typically reject physical contact even from those closest to her. As they get older, they might develop all the attributes you'd expect in a teenage runaway. Jack makes this point amend than I tin can when questioning a doctor on the witness stand in GONE AGAIN:

"Dr. Pollard, every bit the practiced witness in this case, tin can you tell us whether a RAD child would probable feel whatsoever remorse about running abroad from domicile?"

"The brain of a RAD child is not really programmed to feel remorse."

"And if she did run abroad, would she find herself pining away for mom and dad?"

The medico shook his caput. "Not likely."

"Would she be capable of manipulating strangers to give her money or provide other needs?"

"RAD children tin can be quite manipulative."

"In fact, it'south mutual for adolescents to seem charming and helpless to outsiders, while being quite the opposite at home. Isn't that true, Md?"

"That is very truthful."

"RAD children are too known to be effective liars, are they not?"

"They can be. I've had parents tell me that the only time their kid looks them in the heart is when she is lying."

"They steal?"

"Some volition."

"They cheat?"

"Again, some will."

"And they volition do these things without a 2nd thought—as you said, without remorse."

"Aye."

"Their censor doesn't piece of work the way yours or mine works, does it?"

"No, it does not."

"Doing things that might stupor the boilerplate person makes them feel in control. Right, Doctor?"

"Yes, and it's very frustrating for parents. For many, it'south overwhelming."

Earlier reading GONE Again, I had never heard of "rehoming." Can yous shed some light on this practice?

"Rehoming" is really a term that started with pets. You tried out a new domestic dog or true cat for a while, and if it didn't fit your life style, you could give it to someone else—"rehome" information technology. Until I started my research for GONE Over again, I had no idea that adopted children could be "rehomed." I was utterly shocked to discover out how susceptible the rehoming procedure was to abuse, and the real life "rehoming" tragedies that cry out for reforms. I hasten to bespeak out that "rehoming" has nothing to do with the placement of children through foster care. It happens strictly with international adoptions, and fifty-fifty these are coming under stricter controls through treaties. But the fact remains that in that location are real life examples of adoptive parents who took on more than than they could handle in the adoption of a child from a foreign country, and who made a terrible determination to "rehome" their adopted child with convicted felons and other characters who should accept never been immune to get near any kid.

GONE Once more combines elements of mystery and legal thriller. Readers want to know what happened to the missing daughter and, at the same time, wonder what will happen next to our hero. The legal wrangling is fascinating in its realism and particular. All of that makes for a delicate balancing act that'due south hard to pull off. Talk to us a chip about your thoughts on genre and where y'all'd place your books.

Readers and writers have endless debates most "what's a thriller" and "what's a mystery." I have a pretty simply view of what I write, which learned from my first agent, Artie Pine (I am even so represented by his son Richard). Artie told me early on that I write "suspense," which means, starting time of all, that the opening ten pages had meliorate exist killer. I once asked him what makes a killer 10 pages. His respond: "Practise you want to get to page eleven?" I think Artie nailed it.

The city of Miami is ane of the stars of the Jack Swyteck novels. Your love of South Florida comes through loud and clear in the locations yous describe. Tell usa virtually your Miami.

Miami is my home, I've lived here for almost xxx years, and I would have left a long time ago if I didn't appreciate its complication the way my characters do. I love information technology when locals who accept lived here much longer than I read a Jack Swyteck novel and tell me, "Wow, I never knew there was a hundred-yr-old Bahamian cemetery in the Grove Ghetto," or "Gee, I had no idea that Miami's Overtown Village was once Miami'southward Little Harlem," or "How cool is it that Amelia Earhart began her sick-fated flight effectually the world from a little airstrip about Miami?" The diversity of the cast in the Swyteck novels is also a big help. Jack is half Cuban, his side kick Theo Knight grew upwards in Miami's toughest neighborhoods, and his fiancé Andie Henning is an FBI amanuensis who goes into parts of Miami that most people wouldn't cartel visit. Each of these characters sees Miami from a very dissimilar perspective, and I honey sharing that with my readers.

Miami evokes all the right buzz words—smart and sexy, young and beautiful—but it also has a cocky-destructive quality that triggers the kind of fascination nosotros have with a reckless youth. It is blest with natural beauty, just it'southward threatened past developers. It has the gift of cultural diversity, but is plagued by indigenous tension. Its nightlife is unrivaled, but the threat of violence is never far enough away. There's glitz, there's money, at that place'southward the run across-and-be-seen—and then in that location are neighborhoods that seem directly out of the third earth. You lot ofttimes hear information technology said that truth is stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more true than in south Florida . Where else could the Usa Attorney lose his task after losing a big case, getting drunk, and biting a stripper? But it's where I live, it'south where I adept police force, and it volition ever be so much more than than just the properties for my novels.

Jack Swyteck defends bedevilled rapists and murders, which earns him plenty of enemies and a healthy measure of his own cocky-doubt. In GONE AGAIN, you've done an extraordinary job of painting the convicted murderer Dylan Kyle. We feel some measure out of sympathy for him and his case, but he is still a wretched human being existence, guilty of horrific crimes. Should we root for Jack to win every instance? I'grand interested in a lawyer'south accept on the system.

I call back what makes the Swyteck series work is rooting for Jack to do the correct affair, rather than to win every case. Jack plays to win, and I don't mean to minimize the importance of what goes on in a courtroom, but he plays in an loonshit that is inherently entertaining. The courtroom setting is theatrical. The drama is real. The mishaps and surprises can exist both shocking and hilarious. A trial appeals to the voyeur in all of us, satisfying everything from our fascination with celebrities to our prurient interests in the bizarre and criminal. Courtrooms are windows into everything from the heed of a serial killer to your neighbor's sleeping room. Lawyers ask the most personal and probing questions imaginable, and sometimes people have to answer, for all the world to hear. None of this is particularly new—at that place have ever been "trials of the century"—but I practice think that interest has escalated in recent years, largely due to the ability of television set to compress lengthy trials into entertaining snippets. It certainly makes my job every bit a writer more fun. The more than sophisticated the audition, the more complex and multi-layered I tin can brand the plot.

Tell us virtually Jack's awesome wife, Andie Henning.

Andie is an hush-hush amanuensis for the FBI. She likes to speak for herself—so much so that I've given her two novels without Jack: Under Cover of Darkness, in which she tracks a series killer in Seattle; and Greenbacks Landing, which is a prequel to the Jack Swyteck series from Andie's point of view.

And where is Jack'due south commencement wife today?

Ha! Adept question. Cindy Paige was last seen in Beyond Suspicion. But you asked earlier how do I keep the Swyteck series fresh, and this touches on office of the respond. Much of the "freshness" has to do with the extended cast and the characters who accept shaped Jack's existence over the years.

Tin can we wait more of Jack and Andie in the future? What'due south next for James Grippando?

My next novel volition be my xx-5th, which is somewhat of a milestone in any writer's career. So information technology has to exist a Jack Swyteck novel, and of course Andie Henning is back!

Our readers are always interested in successful authors' takes on the publishing manufacture. How has your writing life inverse since The Pardon was published in 1994? Are you optimistic nearly the future of publishing?

When The Pardon was published in 1994, not fifty-fifty Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs could accept predicted how radically the publishing industry would change in the adjacent xx years. My only fearfulness is the evolution of an algorithm that writes novels. That's a blow I'thou not certain the publishing industry tin survive.

*****

James Grippando is a New York Times bestselling writer of suspense. GONE AGAIN is his twenty-fourth novel. Grippando was a trial lawyer for twelve years earlier the publication of his debut novel in 1994, The Pardon, and he at present serves as counsel at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. He lives in South Florida with his wife and children.

For more than data, delight visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

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James Ziskin is the author of the Ellie Stone mysteries, Styx & Stone (October 2013) and No Stone Unturned (June 2014), both from 7th Street Books. A linguist by grooming, he studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. After completing his graduate degree, he worked in New York every bit a photograph-news producer and author, and so as Director of NYU's Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. He has since spent fifteen years in the Hollywood post product industry, running large international operations in the subtitling/localization and visual effects fields. The next Ellie Rock mystery, Stone Cold Dead, is due in the summer of 2015.

Visit James at: www.JamesWZiskin.com

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Source: https://www.thebigthrill.org/2016/02/gone-again-by-james-grippando/

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