As a well-respected labor lawyer in Philadelphia, Michael Hummel is at the top of his game and profession. When he discovers that his defense of a case for his largest client is based on fraud, acquires evidence that a union boss murdered another union leader, and learns that his law partners are engaged in illegal activities that could send him to jail, Michael's world is shattered and he becomes marked for death. While Michael wrestles with the ethical and moral challenges of knowing too much, Eva, his wife, becomes convinced from a news story that she has found the thread that will unravel the murder of their dearest friend and his young family. Eva creates a complicated charade that takes her into the seamiest places in South Florida to find the killer. Successful but unsatisfied, she resolves to bring the person who ordered the murder -- Michael's largest client -- to justice. Neither Michael nor Eva no longer knows whom they can trust and whom they must fear. Death may be lurking around every corner or in darkened building. Michael, knowing he has become a killer's target, must decide whether to guarantee his own and his wife's safety by "going along" or whether to reclaim his latent morality and take actions to do right. Actions, however, that will increase to near certainty the probability that both Eva and he will be murdered by a psychopathic killer-for-hire. Eva, unaware of the dangerous forces her discovery has unleashed, creates for Michael a wild card about which he knows nothing and which threatens his plan for their survival. Animus in Philly is a riveting legal thriller where nearly all reality is, at its core, corrupt and where those who would do good are but mere pawns in the hands of those who would do evil. Readers are thrust into a world of deceit and corruption that challenges them to question their own realities. Are their realities also not what they believe them...or want them... to be?
About the Author: Since 1968, James R. Redeker has been a practicing attorney in Philadelphia, specializing in labor law. Born and raised in Iowa, Redeker obtained a master's degree in English literature from the University of Arkansas and a doctor of jurisprudence degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Every year since 2008, Human Resources Executive magazine and Lawdragon have listed Redeker among the top one hundred labor lawyers in the United States, and he is the subject matter expert on labor law for the Society of Human Resources Management certification program.
Redeker's publications include three books and over one hundred professional articles. Additionally, he authored Aunt Gert, Crazy Eddie and Other Critters, a work of fiction written for middle schoolers.
Redeker lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with Nancy, his wife of fifty-one years. They have three children and two grandchildren. In his free time, Redeker enjoys raising koi as well as skeet and trapshooting.
