St Louis lawyer Rachel Gold deals with many a family drama, mostly of the dysfunctional variety. Divorce. Paternity. And death. Occasionally, all three combine into a "dead hand" trifecta, where the deceased seeks to control the living—and especially his descendants—from beyond the grave.Rachel calls them "zombies." The legal term for such inheritance plans is "the dead hand," the English translation of the Old French term "mortmain." The term refers to the attempt by wealthy individuals to exert perpetual ownership over property (and future generations) through legal documents prepared before they die. But not even the most obsessed tycoon or his skilled attorneys can foresee every future contingency. To quote the old Yiddish maxim, "Man plans, and God laughs." And angry descendants sue.It's so true. Rachel suddenly finds herself representing two women—one a young widow, one an older divorcee—in a pair of nasty zombie cases where the outcome of each hinges upon a clause in a contested