James Grippando uses his personal experience as an attorney involved in the recovery of funds acquired in world’s largest Ponzi scheme as the springboard for his newest standalone novel, Need You Now (Harper: Jan. 3, 2012 release). Abe Cushman is Grippando’s fictional equivalent of Bernie Madoff, the stockbroker who was imprisoned in 2009 for defrauding investors of up to $60 billion.
Unlike Madoff, Abe Cushman chooses suicide over prison, leaving a group of powerful and angry clients intent on recovering their money, which is now unaccounted for. Cushman's death is soon followed by the murder of Gerry Collins, who cooperated in Cushman's scheme.
Tony Martin, a former mobster now in the Witness Protection Program, confesses to killing Collins. In one of the many plot twists in this novel, the reader soon learns that Martin is actually Tony Mandretti, the father of Need You Now's protagonist, Patrick Lloyd.
Patrick, who works as a financial advisor at the Manhattan office of the Bank of Switzerland (BOS), has becomes involved in the search for the missing funds at the urging of the FBI. Patrick hopes to clear his girlfriend, fellow BOS employee Lilly Scanlon, of charges that she illegally transferred $2 billion of the money for Gerry Collins.
Patrick is certain that his father, who is now dying of cancer, is lying about his role in Collins’ death. Others with strong motives to kill Collins include Manu Robledo, an Argentinean who traffics in drugs and illegal weapons, and a former government agent known as the Mongoose.
Patrick realizes that Joe Barber, the new BOS chief who was previously a top U.S. Treasury official, may also be implicated in Cushman's scheme. After meeting Evan Hunt, a quantitative analyst who has dedicated himself to solving the mystery of the missing money, Patrick becomes certain that the government's failure to act decisively in the case is rooted in a more complicated agenda.
Need You Now testifies to James Grippando’s well deserved reputation for the skill with which he incorporates current political and economic events into the fabric of his novels. Grippando also possesses the ability to tie these headlines to a deeply personal story. In Need You Now, that story is reveveled through Patrick Lloyd’s memories of his childhood, marred by the loss of his parents and separation from his sister.
Mystery series followers will be pleased to note that Grippando adds FBI agent Andie Henning to the cast of Need You Now. Henning appeared in two of Grippando’s earlier standalone novels – Under Cover of Darkness (2000) and Lying with Strangers (2007). She has also become a key character in Grippando’s Jack Swyteck series, showing up in Got the Look (2006), Last Call (2008), Born to Run (2008) and Afraid of the Dark (2011).
FTC Full Disclosure: A review copy of this work was provided by HarperCollins.
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