“Need you now” by James Grippando starts out as a Bernie Madoff-like character, Abe Cushman, commits suicide after his sixty billion Ponzi scheme is discovered. As his partner, Gerry Collins, learns about Cushman’s suicide, he is murdered himself upon getting into his car. Fast forward three years and we met, Patrick Lloyd, a Manhattan employee of the International Bank of Switzerland who had just returned from his six month stint in Singapore, where he had broken up with his girlfriend Lilly Scanlon, a fellow employee. Soon enough, Patrick’s life is disrupted and he is fleeing for his life as his boss accuses him of disposing of two billion dollars from Cushman’s funds, and notifies him that his ex-girlfriend Lilly had just been fired in connection with this. Lloyd is obviously clueless about the allegation and starts looking for Lilly, but is nearly killed on his way home from work. To complicate matters, Lloyd is not his real name, and his trip to Singapore was no mere accident. As Patrick finds Lilly, he soon loses her again as Lilly runs from his apartment in the middle of the night after an intruder appears. As they try to figure out what is happening, they put people around them in danger. And the violence escalates from there. There’s FBI agents (both good and bad), sketchy characters, and financial puzzles. Even Lloyd’s own family is thrown into the mix. This is a pretty hard to put down mystery. There’s no one you can trust—even the main characters constantly seem like they’re hiding something. That definitely pulled me into the story. Grippando also does a good job with the plot revelations and action scenes. Highly recommended. Published by Harper. January 3, 2012. 368 pages. List price $25.99
