FS:Book-The King of Torts by John Grisham PB-5132
Grisham continues to impress with his daring, venturing out of legal
thrillers entirely for A Painted House and Skipping Christmas (the re-release
of
which this past fall was itself a bold move) and, within the genre, working
major variations. Here's his most unusual legal thriller yet--a story whose
hero and villain are the same, a young man with the tragic flaw of greed; a
story whose suspense arises not from physical threat but moral turmoil, and
one that launches a devastating assault on a group of the author's colleagues
within the law. Mass tort lawyers are Grisham's target, the men (they're
all men here, at least) who win billion-dollar class-action settlements from
corporations selling bad products, then rake fantastic fees off the top, with
far smaller payouts going to the people harmed by the products. Clay Carter
is a burning-out lawyer at the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) in
Washington, D.C., when he catches the case of a teen who, for no apparent
reason,
has gunned down an acquaintance. Clay is approached by a mysterious
stranger, the enigmatic Max Pace, who says he represents a megacorporation
whose
bad drug caused the teen--and others--to kill. The corporation will pay Clay
$10 million to settle with all the murder victims at $5 million per, if all
is accomplished on the hush-hush; that way, the corporation avoids trial and
possibly much higher jury awards. After briefly examining his conscience,
Clay bites. He quits the OPD, sets up his own firm and settles the cases. In
reward, Pace gives him a present--a mass tort case based on stolen evidence
but worth tens of millions in fees. Clay lunges again, eventually winning
over a hundred million in fees. He is crowned by the press the new King of
Torts, with enough money to hobnob with the other, venal-hearted tort royalty,
to buy a Porsche, a Georgetown townhouse and a private jet, but not enough to
forget his heartache over the woman he loves, who dumped him as a loser
right before his career took off. Clay's financial/legal hubris knows few
bounds, and soon he's overextended, his future hanging on the results of one
product liability trial. The tension is considerable throughout, and readers
will like the gentle ending, but Grisham's aim here clearly is to educate as he
entertains.
#5132
http://www.blujay.com/item/Book-The-King-of-Torts-by-John-Grisham-PB-5132-3011000-3610564
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