Conflicts of Interest

Evoking with masterful ease a disparate range of characters and locales, from a Caicos Islands tax scam to a secret Arizona desert military site to a San Francisco courtroom where a shocking conspiracy explodes, John Martel has created a dramatic, fast-paced thriler--a provocative journey through moral ambivalence, institutional treachery, and the compromises that can destrory us or save us. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST is consummate entertainment.

In a dazzling display of courtroom bravado, Seth "Cowboy" Cameron wins a ticket to San Francisco's Montgomery Street, home of the prestigious firm of Miller and McGrath. But he soon becomes a pawn in a power struggle between the firm's senior partners, led by Brahmin superstar Anthony Treadwell, and the juniors, whom Treadwell labels the "Young Turkeys." Surviving on adrenaline and unkept promises, Seth is primed to beat Treadwell at his own game, when Treadwell sends him Elena Barton. The seductive widow of of an Ar Force pilot killed in the crash of a stealth boomer, she's determined to sue the government contractor to prove the plane was defective and thus erase the stigma of "pilot error." Committed to the firm's questionable strategies and increasingly attracted to his client, Seth is stunned when a shocking career disaster shatters his dreams and lands him in a seedy law office on Mission Street. Allyn Friedlander, Seth's new boss, hides her generous heart beneath a veneer of industrial-strength cigars and caffeine. But she believes in him and backs him when Elena reappears, a dark angel offering redemption . . . or a new way to crash and burn.

After serving as a U.S. Air Force pilot, John Martel studied creative writing at the University of California at Berkeley, then obtained a law degree at U.C.'s Boalt Hall. He soon became a named partner in the now-100 lawyer firm of Farella, Braun & Martel in San Francisco and is a veteran of more than one hundred trials to conclusion with only four losses. He has been hailed by the National Law Journal as one of the top ten trial lawyers in America and brings an insight and stunning realism to his four novels unsurpassed by any other writers of legal fiction. His best-selling debut suspense novel, Partners, spent 15 weeks on the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list in 1988 and drew rave reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Review, and Booklist. His third novel, The Alternate, also spent months on the San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list in hardcover in 1999 and reached #17 on The New York Times paperback bestseller list in 2000. John’s new novel will be released in the Fall of 2012 and has garnered advance raves. John is a modern renaissance man. While writing Conflicts of Interest, he took time off to become the1997 National Masters Champion in the high hurdles, running the fastest time in the world that year. In his "spare time," John, a singer/songwriter with nearly one hundred compositions, has performed his original country-rock songs under the pseudonym "Joe Silverhound" at numerous Bay Area clubs and such venues as the Troubadour in Los Angeles and the Palomino Club in North Hollywood.