Law and Addiction: A Legal Thriller by Mike Papantonio

Law and Addiction: A Legal Thriller. Mike Papantonio. Waterside Productions.  April 2019. pb, 312 hp.; ISBN: 9781939116468.

Opioid addiction has become a national crisis!  More cases of overdose fill the news on a weekly basis.  Police regularly carry and administer Narcan for overdosing addicts.  Meanwhile, as Mike Papantonio has so carefully and deftly delineated in this fictional account of reality, attempts to deal with the problem on a local and national basis continue, attempts to stem a raging flood of addiction and death.

Jake Rutledge is a new lawyer who lost his twin brother to this horrifying disease.  Jake and Blake had a favorite term they used with each other about having each other’s back.  Now Jake is determined to carry out his promise because of his grievous loss.  Having no money and no connections isn’t exactly a wild card in legally pursuing the sources and markets that are part of the mass distribution system of selling opioids.  However, Jake’s got guts and high-caliber intelligence to get his search going. So he begins by suing two companies that sell massive amounts of drugs to little known small towns in and around what is known as “Zombieland.” 

He then connects to a highly successful lawyer with a dynamic record of experience in suing Fortune 500 companies.  They begin by suing companies who have made a killing (literally and figuratively) in West Virginia and Ohio.  Readers will be riveted to the course of each court phase and the wiliness of Jake and Deke, his attorney second chair, in challenging big shot attorneys.

Readers, however, won’t be ready for the methods used to suppress and then shut Jake up.  No spoilers here.  Suffice to say, Jake meets Blake’s former girlfriend who is now addicted to Oxycontin and helps her through her gritty efforts to withdraw from her addiction.  He himself is about to undergo empathic thoughts and feelings after hoodlum attempts to bribe his efforts fail.

The reader also meets several characters who deal and distribute drugs, individuals who are caught innocently in the dragon net of illegality and can’t get out to survive!  

All in all, the reader can anticipate the ending but that’s only after brutality and other machinations have all failed to stymie Jake’s efforts.  Mike Papantonio has penned a necessary legal thriller that everyone should read.  The question readers are left with is “Where do we go from here?”  Highly recommended contemporary fiction!

Elton's Case: The Tug Wyler Mystery Series by Andy Siegel

Elton’s Case: The Tug Wyler Mystery Series. Andy Siegel. Rockwell Press. Copyright 2018. pb. 244 pp. ISBN # 9781981553327. 

Elton Cribbs was arrested and was brutally injured while being transported to jail.  He was paralyzed from the waist down.  A smart man, he researched everything legal about his case and the end result was that he was freed due to the real criminal confessing to the crime. But now Elton is suing the City of New York for causing his physical disability. Tug  Wyler becomes the plaintiff attorney, representing Elton Cribbs, facing a powerful defendant who has numerous witnesses who will testify that Cribbs was faking his disability and at the same time had participated in several scenes that caused his own injury. 

What confuses the issue is that the City of NY first offers $1 million to settle the case.  Why would one settle the case if there was no fault involved, if the evidence was so set in stone to exonerate the defendant?

So the lies parade before Tug: A guard swears that while so-called paralyzed she saw Elton actually stand up from his wheelchair and attack another prison.  A examining physician, in a legal test called an independent medical examination, yields a report that says the plaintiff is faking, even though Tug was present for the entire exam and saw no movement or faking behavior. On and on the farcical “proofs” continue and yet the settlement figure from the City of New York keeps increasing substantially.

The end of this riveting mystery, full of problems and opposition that confuse and upset Tug, is such a stunner that the reader will have to read it twice.  What has Tug learned from this memorable and notorious process?  What is justice and how can it fully cover years lost for imprisonment and a questionable and permanent injury?

The reader also gets a good view of the personal injury field of the law where one learns that plaintiffs and defendants have a job, to win their case, whether that involves truth or lies on both sides.  You won’t forget this case for a long time.  Well-crafted and a good read!!!

Say Nothing: A Novel by Brad Parks

Say Nothing. Brad Parks. Penguin Publishing Group. March 2017. 448 pp.  ISBN#: 9781101985595.

Judge Scott Sampson, his wife Alison and their two children, Sam and Emma, are a happy, peacefully content family.  They’ve moved out to a farmhouse in Virginia so that they can maintain that quiet lifestyle without the pressures of urban living, especially with the frenetic atmosphere of government workers in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C.  But the Judge’s family life is about to totally unravel with a hair-raising series of events that keeps the reader’s pulse raised to the very last page.

Judges are expected to be the epitome of neutrality, capable of examining the facts and circumstances of a case and apply the objective law to those situations.  But what does a Judge and his wife do when their children are kidnapped and they are told to await each new message, letting no one else know what is happening?  They say and do “nothing.”  For the lives of Sam and Emma are clearly at stake! 

The first case the Judge is asked to rule on is what should be a simple drug seller case.  Obeying the kidnappers means making a decision that immediately opens up Pandora’s box of the legal world.  Judge Sampson is now under the scrutiny of higher Judges and even politicians.  To keep his children alive, the Judge says “nothing.”  Alison’s family know but promise silence although they are so enraged one wonders how long that will hold true.

The second case heading for Judge Sampson’s decision concerns a patent of a drug that will be life-saving for those who get to try it.  Its very nice to see all the details of the case laid out so that one understands the intricacies of such cases and so that one can see how much complication Judge Sampson must wade through to come to a legally acceptable decision.  The plot thickens substantially at this point.  One of the children is freed but the other one is undergoing terrible acts that will probably scar her for life.

The story evolves to a mind-numbing, horrific conclusion which is very realistic and not like your standard crime novel.  This is a story you will never forget, one that will want to make you read more of any writing of Brad Parks!  Well done, Mr. Parks!

Law and Vengeance: A Legal Thriller by Mike Papantonio

Law and Vengeance: A Legal Thriller. Mike Papantonio. Select Books (NY). September 2017. 256 pp. ISBN #: 9781590794364.

Gina Romano works for a high-powered lawyer firm, Bergman Deketomis.  They take only the toughest cases that involve large corporations and invariably involve government departments.  Their most famous cases involve corporations dumping chemical waste into rivers and causing, sadly, devastating cases of cancer for years to come.  Of course, taking on such cases involves attracting danger in different forms and also requires the best legal minds to not only take on but also win such cases.  These lawyers, including Gina, love the danger and the daily challenges of each case. 

The case Gina and her firm are presently focused on involves the design and production of a gun, the Sight-Clops, which has a definite problem when used in high humidity conditions.  Investigating this “mistake” winds up with Gina’s boss, Angus, dead and Gina almost dead from an automobile accident.  The description of the accident immediately notifies the reader that some big guns are after Gina, Angus and their law firm, opposition that will do whatever is required to get Gina and Angus to back off.  Of course, no surprise here as it doesn’t work; if anything, as Gina begins her long, long recover, she is determined to use the time to intensify her search for Angus’s killer.  A whistleblower is the source of the leak about the failed product but what are the chances for such a snitcher to survive?

Mike Papantonio is a lawyer and so the plot of this crime thriller is credible, fast-moving but not unrealistically so, and demonstrates a passion for justice that still exists for those legal minds who have not become too jaded from experience.  Law and Vengeance is a quick read because of its constant action-packed pages and interesting characters and issues.  Enjoy the read and you’ll want to Mike Papantonio’s other novels!

An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock: A Samuel Craddock Mystery Prequel by Terry Shames

An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock: A Samuel Craddock Mystery Prequel.  Terry Shames. Prometheus Books. January 2017. 270 pp. ISBN #: 9781633882096.

Samuel Craddock has recently been appointed Chief of Police in small town Jarret Creek, Texas.  Some treat him with respect and others scorn his office as he’s in his 30s, a very young age compared to most law officers in the area.  Because there’s not much crime locally, for the most part, Sam decides to try his hand at raising a few head of cattle.  He and his wife are about to welcome the delivery of these bovine additions to their family when he receives a call about a fire and something that should be seen immediately.  What he finds is so far beyond his recent experience in the Air Force, a grisly fire that burns five people to death and one of them has clearly been shot at point-blank range!

This then is the story of how Sam bypasses and gingerly maneuvers around the flagrant racial prejudice of another law officer and several people in the town, the rambunctious journalist who will do anything for an exciting story like this, corruption in the town, a major drug problem in the local high school, and those who do everything possible to impede Sam’s independent investigation of the fire and murders.  Add to that Sam’s dysfunctional family with a nephew who desperately needs some tender loving care beyond his own parents. 

It's not just racial prejudice that’s rampant in Jarret Creek.  Certain “important” families think that their high status means they are untouchable when it comes to breaking the law.  It’s not until a crisis happens that Sam’s determined nature begins to transform from insecurity to maturity. 

Crimes in these types of legal thrillers or mysteries are almost always solved and the surprise involves unusual investigative techniques and the unpredictability of the perpetrator or perpetrators.  However, there’s another element here, the abandoning of stereotyping everyone with the same brush.  So Sam gives the reader hope that lack of prejudice clears one’s mind to see things objectively and thus connect links toward a solution that not only solves the crime but also serves as a teaching moment for many who may have spurned such previous moments.  

Nicely crafted Terry Shames!  This is a prequel to six other Sam Craddock mysteries – happy reading all!

Law and Disorder: A Legal Thriller by Mike Papantonio

Law and Disorder: A Legal Thriller.  Mike Papantonio. Select Books. September 2016. 352 pp. ISBN #: 9781590793671.

Like the author, Nicholas “Deke” Deketomis is a skilled trial lawyer and talk radio show host.  The novel opens with a dramatic scene in which a young woman, suing a large pharmaceutical company for allowing the sale of a drug, dies right in front of the court after the Judge’s decision to not allow her story as evidence in a class action lawsuit against the drug company.  Deke’s law firm had six good witnesses to take to trial on this matter but now he’s got five and he’s looking for evidence that will unequivocally burn through the defendant’s “lawyered-up” and powerful strategies to defeat Deke’s lawsuit.

The plot then moves to a seeming sub-plot in which a coach of a woman’s team at a Southern Pentecostal Church receives a letter threatening exposure for sleeping with a minor fifteen-year-old teen.  The alleged perpetrator fakes a suicide hoping to con his wife into forgiveness and prayer, but the Pastor in charge of this church has different plans.  For one thing, this is one of those popular mega-churches making enough money from televised sermons and their in-person weekly services to make them a wealthy business.  The Pastor is also supporting a former Senator who is planning a comeback and who is stupid enough to ignore the fact that he is a tool in the Pastor’s grand strategy for even more success in the political world.

The remainder of the novel is about the machinations of the court, lawyers, Judges with a partisan preference, pharmaceutical companies whose only vision is making money minus caring about patients who die because of their poisoning drugs, and what it takes to achieve success in modifying the choices made by these drug companies.  Illegal methods are deemed perfectly appropriate to obtain pivotal evidence to use against the defendant drug company.  Religious leaders are not above destroying anyone who opposes their glorified status.

Most of what is in this novel reflects the way the law and businesses operate, but some of it goes over the edge with authorial license.  Still we are left with a ripping tale that has enough twists and turns to keep the reader flipping the pages and left with somewhat an education that is both informative and shocking!

Nicely plotted, with spunky, intelligent characters, Law and Disorder… is a terrific read sure to please those who love the legal thriller genre!

The Love Wars by L. Alison Heller

The Love Wars.  L. Alison Heller. Penguin Group (USA). May 2013. 352 pp. pbk. ISBN #: 9780451416230.

Molly Grant is employed as a corporate lawyer for the prestigious law firm of Bacon Payne; she’s okay with the 16 hour days because that’s the cost of earning one’s way into partner status.  One day she hears a conversation in the elevator and soon thereafter applies to work in the Divorce Department.  No, this isn’t a bleak, suffering, painful novel; Molly describes her work in a light manner that is both amusing at the foolish demands and counter-demands of couples ending a marriage; satire at the laws that dictate who gets what material goods; and poignant moments when one is on the brink of losing a child and Molly is bold enough to put on her fighting style for the sake of what is truly right and wrong and not just “billable.”

Upon entry into the marital real of legal affairs at Bacon Payne, Molly meets Lillian Starling, a high power, driven attorney who either totally loves her “girls” or fires them with the most absolutely withering phrases and insults, with no in-between moments.  When Molly meets Fern Walker and hears her story, she is reminded of another request for help from a threatened mother years ago and how cavalierly she was turned away since protecting an abused spouse was not the area of the facility where Molly was then interning.  Deciding to represent Fern Walker is risky because Fern’s husband is a very high profile customer of Bacon Payne.  Fern knows there’s a conflict of interest and yet believes she can manage it by starting her own firm.  There’s another bonus in that Molly would get the chance to represent needy clients and not the rich snobs who constantly range from cajoling, insulting and bossy ordering snobs.

How Molly can manage to do her normal work, pay off her college loans her parents assumed for her dream career, and juggle friends and dates is funny, cool, and interesting.  For there are elements of the law that aren’t dry and boring but instead specifically designed to be neutral in order to protect a wife or husband from losing a child, an event that could quite literally destroy that person forever. 

Molly also forms new relationships with colleagues that are honest, straight-forward, challenging, and more reflective of the family-like atmosphere of many law firms that succeed because of successful lawyers and a collegial team spirit, with an additional touch of spicy appeal.

The Love Wars is a fascinating look at divorce law and the lawyers and clients who pass through its gates briefly but with all the drama of a high speed roller coaster.  L. Alison Heller presents the topic and gutsy, intelligent characters with panache and an obviously personal knowledge of the subject.  This may be her first novel but it is definitely a successful endeavor and will leave readers eagerly anticipating more and better of this author with a definite, unique style!  Well done, indeed, L. Alison Heller!