Stephen Greenleaf: Impact (UK 2016)

From the Publisher:
When SurfAir 617 crashes on its way from Los Angeles to San Francisco, the disaster touches many lives.
For Alec Hawthorne, an internationally famous aviation lawyer, it means money - and the chance to fight once again for safety in the skies.

For Keith Tollison, a small-time lawyer, the crash has a more personal implication; Jack Donahue, the husband of the woman Keith loves, was on board the plane.

On Laura Donahue's behalf, the former friends reunite to take on the airline. But as the trial progresses Alec, Keith and Laura find themselves caught in a complex web of intrigue and deceit, and the secrets revealed threaten to destroy them all.

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact. Mulholland Books, ISBN: 9781473624153 (November, 2016), eBook, 0.63 MB (ca. 384 p.), £9.99.

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact (USA 2016)

From the Publisher:
A legal battle turns violent in the aftermath of a tragic plane crash
The fog is thick as SurfAir 617 readies to land. Onboard, a mother consoles her daughter, two children reminisce about Disneyland, flight attendants flirt with each other, and two lovers agonize over their infidelity. None of them know they are minutes from death. Then SurfAir 617 drops out of the sky, the pilots blinded by the fall, and explodes onto the runway. Only eighteen of more than one hundred passengers survive.

The families of the victims soon find themselves under siege by ruthless lawyers and corrupt insurance investigators who will do whatever it takes to cheat them out of their rightful settlements. In retaliation, lawyer Keith Tollison dives into the jungle of aviation law -- and a fight to prove that SurfAir 617 should never have been cleared to fly.

"Greenleaf takes readers on a turbulent adventure... . [A] complex, richly satisfying legal thriller." -- Publishers Weekly
"Splendid... Suspenseful... A harsh indictment of the airline industry and its regulators." -- Library Journal

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact. MysteriousPress.com / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504027649 (February, 2016), eBook, 3.8 MB (ca. 571 p.), $7.99.

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
TOWER TO 617. YOU'RE OFF COURSE. RETURN TO ZERO ONE ZERO. INCREASE ALTITUDE TO THREE THOUSAND...
TOWER TO SURFAIR. TOWER TO SURFAIR. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? LORD JESUS. I THINK THEY'RE DOWN...
IMPACT
With the crash of SurfAir 617 this powerful, brilliantly executed novel of suspense takes off... and doesn't set down until the last page is turned. For Alec Hawthorne, an internationally famous aviation lawyer, the air disaster means money -- and the chance to strike a blow for safety in the skies. For Keith Tollison, a small-time lawyer with high ideals, the crash has far more personal consequences. The husband of the woman he loves was on board. Now, on her behalf Hawthorne and Tollison, once friends, will reunite to take on the airline. But this will be no simple trial. Soon Laura Donahue's past will be mercilessly dissected to reveal a complex web of intrigue and deceit, while an illicit passion threatens to reach into the courtroom to destroy her and her lawyer's careers.

"Greenleaf's prose crackles with new insights. His dialogue rings with smart authority and reverberates in the memory long after the reader has closed the book." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This is a courtroom novel, and it is as enthralling as it is disturbing." -- The New Yorker

Cover art copyright by Tony Randazzo.

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact. Bantam Books, ISBN: 0553288113 (November, 1990), 393 p., $4.95.

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
Stephen Greenleaf has been widely praised as the author of The Ditto List and the John Marshall Tanner series of mysteries (Death Bed, State's Evidence, Beyond Blame, Toll Call, etc.). The New York Times has acclaimed him "a superior writer," and The New Yorker called The Ditto List "a joyful interval of serious fun with the law, with the human condition, and with the foolisher fancies of our time."

Now Greenleaf returns to the kind of legal milieu that made The Ditto List a sensation. In Impact, we meet Alec Hawthorne, rich, polished, an internationally famous aviation lawyer at the peak of his power; and Keith Tollison, a small-time lawyer who has pursued high ideals in the more personal arena of his hometown. Friends in law school, the two men have grown apart in middle age.

Suddenly they find themselves reunited -- by a tragic airline crash and a beautiful woman.
The crash is Surfair flight 617, a commuter aircraft that goes down near San Francisco. In minutes it becomes a blazing inferno that leaves few survivors.

The woman is Laura Donahue, whose husband was aboard the ill-fated plane. It falls to Tollison and Hawthorne to represent her against the airline.

Laura's claim turns out to be no simple trial case, however. We are given a harrowing vision of the traumas and indignities that she must endure to take on a large, powerful corporation's legal department. Her past and personal life are mercilessly dissected in public to reveal a complex web of intrigue, deceit, and personal enmities and grudges. Most dangerous of all, perhaps, is an illicit romance so passionate that it threatens to reach into the courtroom to destroy both her and her lawyers' careers.

Based on meticulous research into the aviation industry and its safety record, Impact brings us the timely issues, rich characterizations, and compelling human drama for which Stephen Greenleaf's novels have won praise.

Stephen Greenleaf is the author of Grave Error, Death Bed, State's Evidence, Fatal Obsession, The Ditto List, Beyond Blame, and Toll Call. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Jacket design by Jack Ribik

Stephen Greenleaf: Impact. William Morrow, ISBN: 0688076688 (August, 1989), 393 p., $19.95.