A Jack Swyteck novel

Jack signs on to defend an old school friend's wife who is accused of murdering her college rapist, but he finds the case unexpectedly complicated by the woman's tortured family history and conflicting testimony from an ex-boyfriend.

A Miami criminal defense lawyer takes on his first death-row client.

"When the body of Jamal Cousin, president of the preeminent black fraternity at Florida's flagship university, is discovered hogtied in the stygian swamps of the Suwanee River, his death sets off a firestorm. And when a fellow student, Mark Towson, the president of a prominent white fraternity, is accused of the crime, the fire threatens to rage out of control. Contending with rising political tensions, racial unrest, and a sensational media, Towson's defense attorney, Jack Swyteck, knows that the stakes could not be higher--inside or outside the old Suwanee County Courthouse. The evidence against his client, which includes a threatening text message referencing "strange fruit" on the river, seems overwhelming. Then Jack gets a break that could turn the case. Jamal's gruesome murder bears disturbing similarities to another lynching that occurred back in the Jim Crow days of 1944. Are the chilling parallels purely coincidental? With a community in chaos and a young man's life in jeopardy, Jack will use every resource to find out. As he navigates each twist and turn of the search, Jack becomes increasingly convinced that his client may himself be the victim of a criminal plan more sinister than the case presented by the state attorney. Risking his own reputation, this principled man who has devoted his life to the law plunges headfirst into the darkest recesses of the South's past, and its murky present, to uncover answers. For Jack, it's about the truth. Traversing time, from the days of strict segregation to today, he'll find it--no matter the cost--and bring much-needed justice to Suwanee County."--Dust jacket.

"It's devu, with a big twist. Three summers after the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history, millions of gallons of oil are again spewing from a hole in the ocean floor. But this rig explosion was in Cuban waters, just 50 miles away from Florida, and the situation is complex. The consortium doing the work is state-owned Venezuelan, Chinese and Russian, controlled by a mineral lease from the Cuban government. And the Cubans not only refuse assistance from the U.S., they also vow to fire on "hostile" American vessels that enter Cuban waters. Enter Jack Swyteck, who's honeymooning with his new wife Andie in the lower Keys. As an ominous black slick appears in the water, CIA agent Andie is called back to an undercover assignment. So Jack heads to Key West to see his buddy Theo Knight. There Jack is transformed from bystander to player in the unfolding oil catastrophe when he takes on a client whose husband was on the rig that blew up. She wants Jack to file a wrongful death in U.S. court. Taking on this unimaginably complicated case pitches Jack into a dangerous world, only to find that his case and Andie's assignment may be lethally connected"--