The Trafficker by Scott Gerber is the tale of a 14-year-old girl kidnapped by a Canadian criminal who runs a brothel in Toronto, which caters to rich men who favor very young girls. The trafficker uses isolation, drugs, and violence to keep his stable in line, and murder when necessary. 

If the name Scott Gerber rings a bell, it is because he was featured in dozens of news stories a few years ago when he was fired from his position as a law professor at Ohio Northern University (ONU). The National Association of Scholars (NAS) stood by him. I wrote more than half a dozen articles about his case, which was among the egregious “cancellations” in our era of widespread academic thuggery. Gerber’s dismissal stemmed from his decision to call out his university’s violations of civil rights laws regarding racial preferences. He sued for wrongful termination and, with the help of attorneys from America First Legal, won his case.

I got tangled up in the case, too, when the university’s attorneys deposed me. It was an odd affair. I was asked over and over again in the course of a long day whether I had been in the room when Gerber was fired. The answer was no. I’ve never been in any room with Gerber, least of all a room at ONU. When the ordeal was over, I asked my own attorney what this strange interrogation was all about. He inferred that the university was laying the groundwork to sue me for libel for writing about Gerber’s cases in a manner that was unflattering to the university president. If they sued, he assured me, I would win, but it would cost me a great deal of time and money. He also advised me to stop writing about the case. If I stopped, he was confident the university would leave me alone.

I stopped. But Gerber and I remained in touch, and my education in the lowdown ways of college administrators and mercenary attorneys continued. In the final settlement of the case, Gerber signed a non-disclosure agreement, which means that he cannot speak to the details. And because Gerber is a scrupulous man, he has disclosed none of those details to me. But this much I know: a highly regarded and well-published scholar and award-winning teacher was ousted from his tenured position for advocating views within his sphere of professional expertise. And in the train of events that followed, though he won his legal case, he lost his career. 

Ohio, as it happens, was in the midst of a state-mandated education reform that included the creation of “civic centers” at five of its state universities. Gerber, who is amply qualified to teach at any of them and who applied for positions at them, was never even called for an interview. As time went by, he applied for similar positions around the country with the same results.

I can explain this in two ways. 

First, he had made it clear in his fight with ONU that he can be a combative character. The heads of those centers presumably intend to lie low and show their host universities that they can be relied on not to stir up trouble. Second, Gerber is a man of principle who does not fit easily—or perhaps at all—into the shadowy world of contemporary higher education where subterfuge, duplicity, and knavery are commonplace. Protecting the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” establishment for the duration of the Trump presidency is the order of the day, no matter how much deception it entails. No one wants a proven whistleblower, especially one with a sophisticated knowledge of the law. 

In any event, Gerber found himself with time on his hands, and having written four other published novels, he set himself the task of writing another. The Trafficker is the result.

Gerber is ingenious and creative. Turning to what he learned while serving on the Ohio Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, he wrote The Trafficker, which details the world that spawns men like Jeffrey Epstein. The police have picked up a young girl soliciting sex at a truck stop. Because she will not give her name, the court calls her Jane Doe and remands her to the custody of a law professor who has previous experience attempting to bring these damaged children back to something resembling a normal human life. But Jane Doe flees at the first opportunity. She is certain that the trafficker will track her down.

And she is right. The trafficker outwits the police and takes her back to his brothel. This is a tightly wrought, suspenseful novel that I cannot summarize without spoiling the plot. What I can say is that Gerber has adroitly woven into the story a realistic exposition of how the trafficking of children works: how the traffickers groom and control their victims psychologically; how they evade the law; and how this racket is sustained by the wealthy and privileged men it gratifies. The average life expectancy of a girl, once she is trafficked, is seven years. One thing we can say on Epstein’s behalf is that he sent most of his girls to college rather than to shallow graves on Little Saint James. 

Gerber has stuck to the principle of writing about what he knows. Much of the action takes place in northern Ohio, and he shows his keen eye for detail on the roads and in the towns, as well as the occasional college campus. His grasp of the psychology of the traumatized children as they become complicit in their doom and his portrait of the trafficker’s polished turpitude are chilling. 

A thriller written by an academic is not unheard of thing. Yale Law professor Stephen L. Carter’s 2002 novel The Emperor of Ocean Park was a best seller and launched his “Elm Harbor” series, including New England White and Palace Council. It turns out that commanding precise legal knowledge can help propel a thriller.

Whether a taught thriller can rescue a defrocked academic, however, is another thing. Sometimes the bad guys win.

The book is available for purchase on Amazon.

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