A Tragedy in Two Acts

This was not the ending either of them expected. Marcus Einfeld, former Federal Court judge and human rights champion, and his old friend Teresa Brennan, an exuberant, sometimes controversial US-based academic, had each spent years establishing demanding careers and international reputations, to create two lives that, on paper at least, exuded success.

Then Einfeld was caught speeding. But rather than pay a small fine, the former judge told a court that Brennan had been driving his car. In reality she had been dead for three years.

Through a chain of events that at times seemed exceedingly unlikely, Einfeld's lie was exposed, with once unimaginable consequences. His world, and virtually every honour he had earned, rapidly disappeared. And his old friend Brennan, who had died in suspicious circumstances, was suddenly, posthumously, attracting attention for all the wrong reasons.

This is the remarkable story of two outstanding Australians whose lives have been lived large, and who, ultimately, have been bound by tragedy.