Three years ago, Miami Police Sergeant Vince Paulo was holding his best friend's daughter, McKenna Mays, as she was bleeding out and dying after a brutal assault. When Vince asked who had attacked her, McKenna's final word was "Jamal," her boyfriend. Within minutes of the teenager's death, Vince triggered a bomb by chasing someone leaving the house; Sergeant Paulo survived the blast that left him blind.

Miami attorney Jack Swyteck is doing pro bono work for his old boss and dear friend, Neil Goderich, who heads the Freedom Institute. Jack's client is from East Africa, speaks no English, and is being held at Guantanamo, better known as GITMO. In just a few hours Jack is to argue before a Washington court for the release of this young man. It took quite a while to break the ice with Prisoner Number 977, who is allegedly a member of al-Qaeda, but when the thaw began it was an amazing and unexpected revelation to many people.

Jack's fiancée, Andie Henning, is an undercover agent for the FBI. Jack and Andie have a tacit agreement to not meddle in each other's business life. Andie breaks that rule by asking Jack to drop this pro bono case.

Chuck Mays is a computer genius that owned a data-mining company that he sold to a media conglomerate for multi- millions of dollars, and then formed MLFC Inc. -- there are two versions of what the initials stand for; the real one can't be printed in this review. After his daughter's death and his wife's apparent suicide, Chuck pours all of his time and energy into his new venture, and it seems that the only person he still trusts is Vince. The high tech of MLFC Inc. is awesome and will help find the killer who destroyed Vince's eyes and Chuck's life.

AFRAID OF THE DARK is a mind boggling balance of abuse of power and good versus evil. Peopled by three-dimensional characters, and propelled by an unrelenting pace, this is an extraordinary tale that never seems to find a stopping place. Dark is not a place, but a person, and you would be wise to be afraid...very afraid of him. All of the story threads come together in an eye-opening and violent climax. This is the author's ninth book featuring Jack, and might possibly be his best legal thriller yet. Wow!

Book Summary

The New York Times bestselling author's ever-popular hero, Jack Swyteck, is on his most dangerous case yet, uncovering a sinister underground world that has him racing across the globe.

Then: Sergeant Vince Paulo held his best friend's daughter, McKenna, bleeding in his arms as she uttered the name of her murderer and ex-boyfriend, Jamal. That was minutes before a blast made everything go black for Vince—forever.

Now: Miami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck has been called in to save Jamal from the death penalty for terrorist activity. Despite urgent warnings from his fiancee, undercover FBI agent Andie Henning, to stay away from the case, Jack finds himself inextricably drawn to Jamal's past—even believing his alibi that he was abducted and held in a black site in Prague at the time of McKenna's death. But if Jamal is innocent, then the man who murdered McKenna and took Vince's sight is still out there . . . free.

Soon bodies begin to pile up and ghosts from the past reappear very much alive, confirmed by ominous threats from a faceless man known only as "the Dark." Vince and Jack must confront a mortal danger that goes beyond McKenna's death, across international waters—a journey to piece together the past that leads through the back alleys of London, onto illegal Internet sites, and straight into the mind of pure evil.

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