Former Geneseo resident pens third novel

Author Todd M. Johnson, a former Geneseo resident, has released his third legal suspense novel.

In the new novel, “Fatal Trust,” Ian Wells is a young criminal defense attorney struggling to build a Minneapolis law practice he inherited from his father while caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s. Nearly at the breaking point, everything changes for Ian when a new client offers a simple case: determine whether three men qualify for over nine million dollars of trust funds. To qualify, none can have been involved in criminal activity for the past 20 years. Ian’s fee for a week’s work: the unbelievable sum of $200,000.

Ian warily accepts the job–but is quickly dragged deep into a mystery linking the trust with a decades-old criminal enterprise and the greatest unsolved art theft in Minnesota history. As stolen money from the art theft surfaces, Ian finds himself the target of a criminal investigation. He realizes too late that this simple investigation has spun out of control and now threatens his career, his future, and his life.

Johnson, a Minnesota attorney, attended elementary school in Geneseo. His first novel, “The Deposit Slip” featured the fictional town of Ashley, Minn., which Johnson based on Geneseo.