a mother is accused of kidnapping her own child a father is suing to have the child return to his home country sounds like a pretty straightforward legal issue turns out it's anything but the book is grave danger by James Grippando James Grippando is a New York Times best-selling author he's written over 30 books he's the winner of the Harper Lee prize for legal fiction his fans are delighted and I count myself as one of them that criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is back the new book the 19th with Jack Swyteck is grave danger and I can attest to the fact that you cannot put it down welcome glad to be here thanks for having me back and I'm so glad that you're back this is the 19th Jack Swyteck Book 19 and another one in the works people seem wanting more of them so I'm obliging well keep keep doing it before this book before grave danger Jack started back 1994 he was a criminal defense attorney in Miami and did you write the first book at as a standalone book or were you thinking wow you know this guy's so good I can do 20 more so it I did not intend for it to be a series I thought the pardon had a very nice tidy ending to it and I left it alone for um about five years there was a natural tension though in that relationship between Father and Son because Jack was a criminal defense lawyer who defended death row inmates his father Harry swek was the Law and Order governor of Florida who was signing More Death warrants than any governor in Florida history so you had that resolution of the father son conflict you had this high stakes issue of was the client Jack representing actually innocent was his father executing an innocent man and that was a lot of intensity for one novel and I moved on and wrote five Standalone and then I had I had the same editor for 28 years by the way so this was a about six years into our relationship around 2002 she says you know Jack was just a young guy he was 28 years old in the pardon um that was and I and she loved that story that was sort of a our sort of our where we really cemented our relationship and um she said let's bring him back um and that happened in 2002 and so the rest is history now there's been 19 in the series it you know it it's remarkable that he has lasted this long but but it's also because the writing is so good and he's such a good character this book had my undivided attention right from the start and I want to give a little history here in tran there were these modesty laws and in the year 2022 a young woman Maha Masa amini and I believe she was 22 years old was jailed she died and her crime was opposed in the mandatory hijab not wearing the head scarf this is not her story but this is relevant to the story was this at all a spark to you writing this book it was um that incident you're talking about with Masa amini happened in September 2022 um I was in Boston um my daughter was a ballet dancer she was dancing in the Nutcracker and it was 4°.. we were staying in a hotel on the Boston in Copley Square which is a big open area um four degrees mind you and there were women out in front of the Boston Public Library holding the science um women life Freedom which became the slogan for the protests out of ton that Rose because um at first it was was announced that Masa had died inexplicably um it came out that she had been beaten to death for violating hijab rules and the protests that um ensued were became a worldwide phenomenon I think if the your viewers will probably remember it there were um women who in protests in the United States in Turkey in Italy across the world cutting their hair um as part of a show of solidarity for the um opposition to these um modesty laws as they were called but the modesty laws were enforced very brutally they were enforced by What's called the morality police um and um Masa sadly was the first um uh and the morality police took their campaign um even in to schools 15-year-old girl was beaten to death because she would not sing an Anthem In Praise of the current regime you know and in all there were 20,000 arrests over 500 people were killed executions in tran increased by 75% in 2022 is a way of terrorizing people to stop the protest um but it was that moment when I was in Boston and saw these women in the freezing cold thousands of miles away from ton holding their signs women life Freedom that I said I need to write a story um and it wasn't like you say it's not masa's story but it's inspired by it is it is inspired over the years Jack's cases he has grown and his cases have shifted in Focus which I found it very interesting earlier ones to me seem more personal more local this one has Global implications and it's even hinging on the the hag convention we have a child that has been kidnapped from Iran by The Mother We have a father who is suing to return this child to Iran so this is way out of the the scope of what you or and Jack have have known about what kind of research into International law did you have to do yeah so that's a great question because you know I had I knew that um a couple things about the U the protests one was simply um the fact that um uh women played such an amazing role in these protests um and in addition to all the forms of Oppression and violence that the morality police imposed they created a news blackout and it was women a network of women who were sending text messages with photographs of the brutality and the protests and and and on and on sharing it with each other and that's how much of the news got out of the country so I thought well this mother who abducts her child is not going to be some you know bad actor who's who's who's trying to steal her child from her her father she is trying to find a life for her daughter in a place where she can live freely she lands in Miami then the question is okay right you know Jack's a criminal defense lawyer how does he end up in this dispute well um there is the back story of Jack and his wife Andy Andy wants him to get more away from criminal law because she's an FBI agent and somehow it seems like the FBI or law enforcement ends up with egg in its on its face in many of Jack's cases so she's encouraging Jack to Branch out this case comes to Jack um as a volunteer basis which is many ways is the way it does happen the lawyers who represent many women in these situations who are often fleeing domestic violence will take their children come to the United States and if they are sued for the return of that child in general the law disfavors abduction and under under the heg convention and under the approach of our state department um abduction is disfavored you have an uphill battle trying to keep your child in a country a foreign country once you've fled and so Jack volunteers for this case and that's how he gets involved if you ever need someone in an uphill battle Jackie Jack is the guy to go to did you ever think or did anyone ever tell you this story is going to be too complex to put in a novel it it well it has but it has the basic I I appreciate that sensitivity and my editor and I talked it out and what we really decided was to focus really on the human side of it right is the mother Desiring for a a a a free country for her child to live in for the father not really understanding why his wife would do something like this and then of of course I add the normal twists that come with it which is that it's not the mother actually who took the child it's her younger sister you're giving away more than I thought so okay it's not that you learned that in chapter two so um so it becomes this interesting very complex but I think um uh worth the effort mystery that unfolds surrounding Jack's fight for this child and a woman who's trying to save her future for something that could be so complicated you not only make it understandable but you make it compelling and so easily readable is there a balance between getting the legal part right and making it fascinating for the reader yeah there is a balance and uh you know and I I can tell you I took a little literary license with the title itself right so what the woman must what the mother must prove in order to keep her child is that if the child is returned to tyan um the child will will be exposed to a grave risk of physical or emotional harm so um I kind of thought grave risk it's really kind of a lame title so um so I brought in the component of danger right which danger lurks at every turn in this novel does so so we call the book grave danger so yes there is this is not an encyclopedia or a textbook on the heg convention and the law of international abductions it's really a um a one woman's struggle with a six-year-old child who knows that Stakes could not be hire if if Jack doesn't win her case she can never go back to tyan her daughter will be sent to tyan and live the life that she's trying to avoid without her without her forever you know in the beginning we see Jack and Addie and Addie as you said is his wife she is an FBI agent and they're in marriage counseling and that throws me I'm going oh no not they're a perfect couple so what's happening because this personal conflict is really important to this story it is important because um Andy has been part of Jack's life now since a book called Got The Look which I wrote in 2005 so she's one of the early cast members and it is an ensemble cast here um and U Jack um and that's one of the things people enjoy about the series and it's one of the things a writer has to decide UPF front is your character going to age in real time and so Jack sort of does there's 19 books it sort of spans 19 years um he's married now but there's an there's a tension in his marriage it's a criminal defense lawyer who often times is going after law enforcement um and his wife is an FBI agent um and they've set up certain rules to live by to keep that professional conflict from entering their marriage um and because of fans of the series will know because of a couple cases that Jack has had recently those barriers are not working and it's putting strain on their marriage and so they are in counseling at the beginning of the series but um uh I think that Dynamic um you know our REM marriage has its struggles um you know and and and uh Jack and Andy are no different and so part of their personal life of working that out is is what you you know goes to your earlier question is you know how do you avoid making this just something about the law um there's an important um part of the series of Jack and Andy's relationship that is incorporated into this story and I think this only makes it more authentic I I I really do now no spoilers here but there's a scene where Andy gets a surprise visit from a woman whose husband is jailed in Iran and the story is evolving and things as we said are not as they appear on the surface but you added a fact that kind of blew my mind that three Americans are kidnapped or wrongfully imprisoned somewhere in the world every day yeah that's a that is an actual statistic uh it surprised me too and the reason I came across that statistic is I took a training course on um representing uh women who are in these International custody battles because I wanted to understand the law better and the first thing I could not understand was why the state department would not take a supportive role of a woman who is for example fleeing domestic violence and bringing her child to the United States and the answer is the the statistic you just gave which is that if the United States supports Abduction of any kind in any context um they then what will happen then if an American child is kidnapped and taken to Iran or taken to a foreign country um it's it's a quidd proquo kind of diplomatic stance that the state department has taken here in that even though they for example will often times help the father in this instance find a lawyer because he's not the abductor the woman is on her own which is why as I said um most of these cases most of the lawyers in these cases are volunteers that was that statistic and that's comes to what a thousand a year that that really was eye openening for me and as I was writing this case people may remember in um 20123 there was the release of the five hostages from Iran um which got national attention but the truth is that those negotiations are going on all the time um it's just the headlines grab it when there's actually finally after years of captivity an American setting you know stepping off a plane and setting foot on American soil it would not be a gondo book without a courtroom scene this is not your typical criminal defense scene tell me about how it's a little different well so this is actually something that sounds like a you know maybe hyper legal but it's not it actually made the writing easier for The Rules of Evidence do not apply strictly in these proceedings because they're International proceedings even though they're in a US courtroom and a US judge is presiding the strict rules of evidence do not apply um which means that judges can be somewhat creative and the the um the course that I took the training course that I took um was taught in part by a federal judge named judge Denny chin and Denny chin became um really well known as a Pioneer in this area because he recognized that there must be um some flexibility here because we're dealing ultimately we're dealing with a child's entire future it's in our hands here and so um Denny chin told the story in the training course that I took about um how he he wanted to speak to the child now you wouldn't do that in a in a tra if I wrote that into a a regular Jack schwich novel in a criminal courtroom and you got the judge taking the child back to his Chambers and talking to the child I would get a million letters saying that just doesn't happen well this actually did happen um in the US District Court in the southern district of New York where judge Denny chin took his took the child back to the chambers and related to the child one on-one and he shared with us a drawing that the child did for him that totally swayed him in the case which the child by herself he asked the child to draw a picture of her family um and I don't want to describe in because it's a child's you know emotions coming through but based on that picture that he drew of his family me that she Drew for the judge of her family members the judge ruled in favor of the mother and the child state in the United States have you ever had to question a a child in in your legal career and I know that can be both gut-wrenching and really risky for a case I've actually served as a guardian at liem um before um and this was many years ago and and it is you know it's it's it is gut-wrenching and risky as a lawyer it's also gut-wrenching and risky as a writer um too because you know I'm a father and I can imagine where these children um uh the roller coaster that they on and you don't want to come across in the writing as exploiting that either just for entertainment's sake so I want to get it right and I want it to be powerful and honest um and and but on this at the same token you know as we were just talking about this drawing you recognize child also has privacy rights um you that you don't want to intrude upon so um so in that way those were some of the most different elements of writing grave danger really was the courtroom scenes with the with the child um were um you know normally I can do like three pages a day when I'm really going when you're writing something like that it's you know maybe it's three pages every other day the book is filled with moral dilemmas there are ethical challenges and much of this is the pressure being put really to me on on Addie on the strain on on the marriage but it is a good story line so I for one love that they have grown as a couple and as individuals and in the same token I am so glad that Theo Knight is in the book I think your readers would Revolt if he doesn't show up in every book tell me about Theo so so Theo Knight was a when Jack was a young lawyer defending death row inmates Theo was the youngest um inmate on Florida's death row he was a teenager uh and it turns out he's the only one Jack ever represented who was actually innocent so there's a bond there and he fought for Theo um until you know when I wrote the pardon um um DNA evidence wasn't that prevalent right so so that didn't come out until later in the series that the reason Jack got was able to get Theo off death row was DNA evidence would convin which conclusively proved his innocence um but Theo what people love about Theo is that he lives his life the way you might think someone would live it if they'd spent four years on death row and you're making up for not just making up for lost time but Theo's kind of motto is anything worth doing is worth overdoing you know he's really going to enjoy life to the fullest he's a risk taker and Jack's not by Nature a risk taker so it makes for an interesting dynamic in the friendship and um Theo by the way is not in the first novel that is a character that I created with Carolyn Marino my my editor who's now retired but um we talked we thought Jack needed a buddy um and um and Theo fit the bill so so the series really for fans of the series they know this but I I'll it it sort of goes through um a cycle right the the pardon is Jack with this conflict with his father then there's sort of the Jack and Theo phase and then Jack meets the love of his life with Andy and so the later novels are Jack and his wife Andy but you're right if I to write Theo out of the series I'd be in big trouble oh he he's he's sticking around Jack has grown we talked about he's grown personally how is he grown professionally so he's gotten more confidence right I think Jack didn't have a lot of confidence he thought he was always in over his head as a young lawyer um now that he's been at the practice and and has um uh a string of very important winds under his belt he has more confidence professionally um Jack was a bit of an ideologue at in in in the pardon right and was and people like that about him you know an injustice offended him but it offended him to the point where it really interfered with his judgment and and his his performance in the courtroom and his interaction with other lawyers um he still is offended by an injustice but he's not found a way to use that as an advantage in a courtroom that passion he has mass he has sort of cabined it um and used it to his advantage and so now where you know he might have have have just flipped his lid over um something that happened in a case 20 years ago um he will now simply work harder and re and realize that even though the system is broken it can still render Justice if he's there for his client so wisdom with age I guess I guess so yeah yeah although fortunately he's not that old yet so I can keep writing Jack until my 90s hopefully I hope so too there's something that a character does in this book and that is they take their cell phone and they wrap it in aluminum foil now is that a thing I'm told it is um so it's funny because um the Kevin Smith was a friend of mine um Kevin um um no longer with us I miss him terribly but Kevin was left MIT after his freshman year cuz he was bored um and went on to become an inventor and he ended up holding like 50 patents and just the but he was also um you know if you ask him uh his favorite book it was Atlas shrugs so he was sort of this you know Renaissance guy um and I told him I was writing a book called afraid of the dark and I and I just went to him I thought you know Kevin smart guy science you know and like so you know I've got um a character actually it was Jack he was in London at the time and he was running from the bad guys and he didn't want to lose his cell phone but he was afraid he would be tracked and I asked several people how to do this and I came some of them gave me like the most complicated answers about taking apart their phone and taking this out and it's like and it's like and Kevin's like okay where is he oh he's uh he's in this part of London like great okay there's a convenience store right around the corner he runs into the convenience store wraps it in aluminum foil and I'm waiting for like and then what he's like no that's it that's it he they can't track him it won't be tracked so anyway yeah thank k a thing it it's a thing thank you yeah the new book is Grave Danger James Grippando it is always a pleasure to have you here thank you can't wait to be back thank you I'm Anne Bocock please join me on the next between the covers