Interview with Mike Papantonio: "Inhuman Trafficking: A Legal Thriller"

 Mike Papantonio is a senior partner of Levin Papantonio, one of the country’s largest plaintiffs’ law firms. He has aggressively taken on Big Pharma, tobacco, weapon manufacturers, and the automobile industry, among other bastions of corporate greed, and uses his own cases as springboards for his novels. His latest release, Inhuman Trafficking, is based on the case about human trafficking that he’s working on to test in Virginia and is a fast-paced thriller in the tradition of John Grisham, Joseph Finder, and John Lescroart. 

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For Nick “Deke” Deketomis, going where angels fear to tread in waging legal battles has long been a way of life. As managing partner for one of the nation’s largest plaintiffs’ law firms, Deke has gone toe to toe with some of the largest corporations in the world. His firm specializes in the tough, even quixotic, cases that few lawyers would dare to take on. Like human trafficking.

 Deke’s target this time is Welcome Mat Hospitality, a firm known for its truck stops and lodging throughout the United States. What Welcome Mat doesn’t advertise is the human trafficking—for sex work and slave labor—going on at many of its properties. For the sake of better profits, Welcome Mat’s ownership has turned a blind eye to this lucrative enterprise.

 As invested as Deke is in the case, though, it takes on even greater urgency when the past comes calling with word that his fifteen-year-old goddaughter, Lily Reyes, is missing. When Deke learns that Lily has fallen prey to a notorious trafficker, his personal and professional worlds converge. For his goddaughter to survive, Deke must prevail not only in the legal arena but outside of it.