Impact

Opening his story with the final moments of a doomed commuter airplane in California, Greenleaf takes readers on a turbulent adventure in aviation law where millions of dollars are at stake for crash victims and their grieving families. It's an emotional and legal ordeal as shyster lawyers exploit the victims, and corrupt insurance agencies engage private eyes to harass the families into dropping lawsuits, while the families themselves are being torn apart by the tragedy. Killed in the crash is Carol Farnsworth, whose sister, Brenda, is the lover of the novel's hero, small-town lawyer Keith Tollison. Improbably, the women he loves, Laura Donahue, is married to one of the few crash survivors. His affairs with both women are put on hold as Laura decides her husband, though a scoundrel, needs her help, and Brenda attempts to save her mentally disturbed son from his suicidal grief over his beloved aunt's death. These conflicts come to a head in a searing courtroom trial which turns into a legal free-for-all involving love, revenge and a great deal of money. The author of Fatal Obsession has penned another complex, richly satisfying legal thriller. (Sept.)