When Darkness Falls by James Grippando Review
February 26th, 2007 by admin
At the beginning of the book there is a hostage crisis. A homeless man named Falcon has climbed on top of a bridge and is threatening to jump. He agrees to come down if he is allowed to talk to the mayor’s daughter, Alicia Mendoza. The hostage negotiator, Vincent Paulo, agrees to try to work something out. Alicia (a cop herself) shows up on the scene and is willing to talk to Falcon, but the officials in charge at the scene do not let that happen. When Falcon agrees to come down, they immediately arrest him and set bail at $10,000.
Jack Swyteck, a defense lawyer who has appeared in other books by Grippando, takes Falcon’s case. Falcon doesn’t seem to have any money to his name. After all, he is living in an old car that doesn’t run and doesn’t have any windows. But, Falcon convinces Jack to go to the Bahamas and open a safe deposit box he has there and get his bail money out of it. Jack goes and discovers not just the $10,000 needed for Falcon’s bail, but a total of $200,000. Jack wonders why Falcon is living on the street when he has so much cash stashed away.
The mystery and twists and turns of the story continue. Falcon gets out on bond, and then almost immediately wanted by authorities again because a woman turns up beaten and dead in the trunk of his car. Falcon searches out Jack, and carjacks Jack, along with his friend Theo. Jack manages to escape when the vehicle crashes into a seedy motel, but Falcon takes Theo and some hotel occupants hostage. Falcon then demands to talk to Alicia, an obsession that becomes a key part of the book.
The dirty war in Argentina is also discussed in the book with Falcon having flashbacks to occurrences at one of the detention centers. Those flashbacks are also pivotal to the book (for the a short synopsis of the true story of one of one sergeant’s role at the El Campito concentration camp in Argentina in the 1970’s go to: http://www.yendor.com/vanished/junta/caraballo.html).
An addition, the mayor becomes deeply involved in the hostage situation. Is it because he fears for his daughter who has became Falcon’s obsession, or is it for some other reason?
Although the story was very good, there were times when things were too drawn out and dragged along. That is the one thing that prevents me from giving the book 10 smilies.
My rating (0-10 smilies): 9 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺