Thy Brother's Wife is more a novel of plot and ideas than of characters.

The characters are essentially embodiments of ideas and instigators of plot.

The dynastic father, Mike Cronin, is a hard-driving, self-made millionaire whose Irish charm aids his seductions of countless women. Paul Cronin, the son he has destined for the Presidency and for the husband of his beautiful foster child Nora, is the evil figure of the novel who is willing to lie, cheat, and even kill in order to succeed in the path his father has chosen for him. The most intimate knowledge the reader has of Paul comes at the end of the novel when he takes a suicidal boat ride on Lake Michigan.

Greeley manages to realistically convey the psychological conflict of a man torn between hope and despair, between a drive to survive and a terrible fear of exposure. Both Mike...