Rating: 
Summary: A CONTEMPORARY CHILLER
Review: With a theme as contemporary as today's glaring headlines and a scenario as chilling as our worst nightmare James Grippando has crafted his sixth thriller. While Matthew Rey, an entrepreneurial commercial fisherman is in Colombia, he is kidnaped by a violent band of guerrillas whose leader, Joaquin, gives sadism a new dimension. Matthew's son, Nick, an up-and-coming Florida lawyer, receives a ransom demand for three million dollars. Unbeknownst to Nick that is the exact amount of a kidnaping insurance policy recently purchased by Matthew. As attempts to rescue Matthew through the State Department prove futile, Nick turns to senior attorney, Duncan Fit, for help. Duncan proves to be both two-faced and double-dealing as he dismisses Nick, and informs him that the law firm will represent an insurance company in a fraud suit against Nick and his family. Out of a job and charged with several felonies, Nick seeks the assistance of stunning Alex Cabrera, a kidnaping negotiator. Grippando's years of experience as a trial lawyer are evident in his taut description of Nick's uphill battle against Colombian guerillas, government agencies, and his former law firm.
Rating: 
Summary: A pleasing uncomplicated excursion, it's not goodliterature
Review: `A Kings Ransom' was all right. It read like Grippando was using Grisham as a template and layering that upon a kidnapping story. To keep the pages turning, Grippando adds generous doses of suspense and keeps several surprises in store for the reader along the way. What it all adds up to is a very predictable work no more challenging on the old synapse than an A Team re-run.
I can't say just what it is that Grippando is trying to do as an author other than to cash in by writing very sellable, politically correct, and Hollywood style pulp. Obviously while you read this you will see that the author does not have an original thought in his mind. This novel reads like it was plotted out to fit around an interesting situation (the kidnapping) and then it became the authors responsibility to tie up the many loose ends in a satisfactorily uncomplicated manner.
The prose and conversational aptitude occurring in this book are barely adequate to sustain a novel this size. The characters are barely fleshed out, not even the protagonist in this story. All in all I can't even really say anything very nice about this book other than it easily beckons the reader along by offering several sharp twists in the story structure. This is the kind of book that I would guess a cynical writer intent upon selling as many copies of his titles as is humanly possible. Crass commercial drivel at its most hedonistic.
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