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GOT THE LOOK
by James Grippando
HarperCollins, January 2006
400 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 006056458X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Jack Swyteck finally finds the woman of his dreams, but when he discovers that she's married, he refuses to have anything to do with her again. That is until the FBI contacts him when she is kidnapped. Her rich husband had found out about their affair and now refuses to pay the ransom and won't even play along with the FBI's suggestions unless Jack is the one to handle the pay-off.

When the kidnapper turns out to be the serial 'Pay What She's Worth' kidnapper, the FBI agent in charge, Andie Henning, knows that getting the kidnapped woman back is going to be very tricky. Unless the kidnapper thinks the husband has really given enough, he will, as he's done in the past, kill the victim.

Jack can't help but take pity on his former lover when the kidnapper revels a video where the woman is screaming in pain. Jack sees that he must do whatever he can, including making a pay-off himself using his own money and more importantly try to solve the mystery of the kidnapper's identity to save his former girlfriend.

Author James Grippando has created an uneven mystery in GOT THE LOOK. There are two catchphrases used, 'Pay Me What She's Worth' is the first and the title of the book is the second one. It's an example of what's wrong with this novel. He can't seem to decide on what the main thrust of the story should be, and so the upshot is that it reads as though two stories were pieced together to try to make one mystery.

The result is that there are too many holes in the story and too many unanswered questions pile up in the reader's mind. When an important question is answered by, "I guess we'll never know" followed by a joke, I felt the bond of trust between writer and reader was irrevocably broken. The mystery and the book's conclusion were unsatisfying. By the end I didn't like anyone in the story and didn't care whether they survived.

The writing had no spark to it and I found myself constantly counting the pages to see how much more I had to read to get to the end -- a very bad sign when reading any book. I didn't enjoy GOT THE LOOK and can't recommend it.

Reviewed by Sharon Katz, March 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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