Grippando writes in nail-biting style.
—USA Today

A plot filled with twists and turns. Found Money is a good yarn about two honest people whose main problem is that their parents kept too many secrets.

If the quality of a thriller can be measured by its ability to confound and then delight its readers, then Grippando's latest is very good thriller indeed. Like his previous novel, The Abduction, this one sets up a situation--28-year-old Amy Parkens receives $200,000 in the mail from an anonymous donor--and piles up question upon question until readers feel they might go crazy trying to figure everything out. Did the money come from a man who recently died, leaving millions of dollars stashed away? What is the secret buried deep in the man's past, and does it have anything to do with the apparent suicide of Amy's mother 20 years ago? The questions keep coming, long after the halfway point (when most thrillers tend to start providing answers), but all of a sudden, everything clicks, and readers will want to applaud. Number this intelligent, cleverly constructed thriller among the best.--Booklist

For anyone who's ever dreamed of finding a cash windfall, Grippando's (The Abduction) new crime novel offers a cautionary tale of greed, family secrets and the dangers of getting what you wish for. Just before Frank Duffy dies, he tells his physician son, Ryan, that there is $2 million hidden in the attic, and that Frank got the money through blackmail--albeit off someone who "deserved it." The level-headed Ryan considers both claims unbelievable--until he finds the money. What secrets had his mild-mannered, hard-working father been hiding? Meanwhile, Amy Parkins, while struggling to support her daughter and her grandmother and to put herself through law school, receives $200,000 from an anonymous benefactor, apparently Frank Duffy, whom she'd never met. Why? Could the gift have anything to do with her mother's mysterious suicide 20 years earlier? Troubled by the criminal implications of his father's legacy, Ryan decides he can't touch the cash until he knows where it came from. His questions kick off a wild ride involving lawyers and guns, Panamanian banks, seductive strangers and too much FBI interest for comfort. Amy, too, tries to trace the money, putting her on a collision course with Ryan and his greed-maddened family. As Ryan and Amy search for the money's source and meaning, they uncover a conspiracy involving high-ranking government officials, multi-billion-dollar corporations and a hidden crime committed on a hot summer night years ago. The final revelation is a real kicker, but it would carry even more force if overly tricky plot contrivances hadn't diluted the suspense of what came before. (Feb.)

Grippando (The Abduction, LJ 3/15/98) has done it again, crafting a thrilling scenario filled with terrifying images of money's dark side. Dr. Ryan Duffy returns home to attend his father's funeral, expecting to console his mother. Instead, his father's dying words, wrought with allusions to blackmail, encourage Ryan to seek out an unexpected pile of cash squirreled away in the attic. Mom is not talking about the millions there, and Ryan's pregnant sister and abusive brother-in-law turn sinister. Meanwhile, single mom Amy Parkens receives an anonymous package from the dying Duffy Senior--$200,000 in cash in a crockpot box. Amy traces the money to the Duffys through the crockpot warranty, and this results in an immediate but wary attraction between Amy and Ryan. The pair circle around a decades-old mystery involving their parents and those they considered their most trusted friends and allies. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/98.]--Susan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., Phoenix

A worthy idea is undercut by slapdash craftsmanship. The idea: What to do if, like manna, a big bundle of money drops down out of the blue into your lap-two million dollars, in Ryan Duffy's case; $200,000 in Amy Parkens's. The hitch (there has to be one) is that the money Ryan finds in his daddy's attic may be tainted. In fact, his daddy tells him so: It was gotten through blackmail, he confesses, and then breathes his last before he can divulge the details. But, as Ryan learns, there's this safety-deposit box in Panama that promises to be well, interesting. So off he goes, and there discovers that he now has to add another $3 million to his worrisome treasure chest; also that his father, at age 16, was convicted of rape-though no names are mentioned in the yellowing press clipping. Is that the nasty secret behind the blackmail caper?

Regardless, before Ryan leaves Panama, he's victimized by the kind of sneakily orchestrated heist that convinces him other players are involved in this no-rule game. In the meantime, Amy's also bothered and bewildered by her windfall-sent to her anonymously, no explanation. She's the resourceful type, though, and a bit of sleuthing leads her to Ryan-and to the conclusion that the Duffy family and her own must have been connected at some point, in all likelihood dubiously. Having arranged to meet, Amy and Ryan are instantly smitten with one another. (It turns out, thank heaven, that whoever Ryan's dad did rape, it was not Amy's mom, which certainly would have put a crimp in the romance ) Several murders-and one bad beating-later, it becomes clear that Dad Duffy was indeed framed. What's never entirely understood (or plausible) is why his secret wasworth $5 million. Twists for twists, many of them preposterous. But the real problem is, as always, Grippando's people: So few are persuasive.

This fourth mystery of a trial lawyer turned author examines the legal and ethical issues that two honest people wrestle with when each becomes the unexpected beneficiary of a large sum of money. Guidall dignifies Grippando's contrived start to glide the listener onto more interesting terrain. He is both authoritative as the story's avaricious divorce lawyer and questioning as its single mom. In the end, he lends strength to the weaker plot elements, gripping the listener to the conclusion. R.N. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine