It’s not just the brisk action and solid plotting – and there is plenty of both, even the occasional car chase and gun battle – that make James Grippando’s thrillers so enticing.

It’s the Miami author’s ability to hone in on realistic characters caught up in situations over which they have no control. It’s the tactic that the best thriller maestros, from Hitchcock to Harlan Coben, utilize to the maximum. Grippando has a secure place on that list.

The heart of each of Grippando’s seven novels about Miami defense attorney Jack Swyteck is the friendship between two men from different backgrounds. Jack, the son of a former governor, and Theo Knight, who grew up on the streets in one of Miami’s roughest neighborhoods, trust each other, even when it doesn’t seem to be in either’s best interests.

Their bond was sealed when Jack proved Theo innocent of a murder and saved him from death row.

But the past pulls in “Last Call” (HarperCollins, $24.95) when an escaped convict who grew up with Theo demands his help. The payoff: The convict will tell Theo who murdered his prostitute mother more than 20 years ago.

As Theo and Jack try to piece together what the criminal knows, it becomes obvious that someone is framing Theo.

“Last Call” doesn’t slow down until the final surprising twist while Grippando continues to find new dimensions to his characters. Jack’s renewed love interest in an FBI agent as well as Theo’s affair with his current girlfriend add the needed break in “Last Call’s” hard-hitting action. The author skillfully develops Theo’s relationship with his aged uncle who warns him that what he learns about his mother may not be what he wants to know.

Despite Jack’s profession, Grippando, himself an attorney, has never made these books legal thrillers. Rather, they are novels of South Florida as the author illustrates the area’s changes through the years. In “Last Call,” Grippando gives a unique view of Miami’s once-thriving jazz scene in the heart of the black community.

Grippando, who also has written six stand-alone novels, just gets better.