The sudden death of Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch propels his successor,
Lester Horner, first into Hatch's Senate seat and then on to become the
first Mormon associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Carried along
with Horner is Blythe Oaks, an ambitious and intelligent woman who is
also Horner's favorite law clerk and fellow Mormon. But Blythe's
reputation - and, by extension, Lester Horner's - is threatened when a
female former employee accuses her of sexual harassment and career
sabotage. In Higher Authority White shifts his focus from Dr. Alan
Gregory, the hero of Privileged Information and the national bestseller
Private Practices, to Alan's fiancée, Lauren Crowder. The pool-shooting
deputy D.A.'s life is already complicated enough as she picks her way
through her relationship with Alan at the same time she is fighting her
quiet and dignified battle with multiple sclerosis. But since Blythe's
accuser happens to be Lauren's kid sister, aspiring stand-up comic
Teresa Crowder, Lauren plunges into the case. And she gets immediate
help from an old law school buddy, Robin Torr, whose practice is in Salt
Lake City. When, suddenly, Blythe Oaks is savagely murdered in
Washington D.C., the lengths to which someone will go to protect secrets
that might prove embarrassing to higher authorities in the church are
starkly revealed. And as Crowder and Torr probe more and more deeply
into these secrets, with timely help from Alan Gregory and his old
friend Detective Sam Purdy of the Boulder, Colorado police, White's
tough but determined women find the body count growing and themselves
placed in jeopardy by a remorseless killer.
