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Title: The King of Torts by Dennis Boutsikaris, John Grisham ISBN: 0-7393-0221-3 Publisher: Random House Audio Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 5 List Price(USD): $31.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.94 (443 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Grisham is back in form with a fast paced, complex thriller
Comment: Fans of John Grisham's earlier legal works should be pleased with this thriller set in the complex, greedy world of tort lawyers. You can't help but like and hate the main character, lawyer J. Clay Carter II as he changes from a low paid but dedicated attorney in the D.C. Public Defender's office to a high powered, freewheeling and greedy corporate lawyer. When the chance to cash in on 6 settlements for a new drug gone wrong lands in Carter's lap, he is lured into the jet-setting life of other wealthy attorneys looking for quick settlements. Even though you may not approve of their motives, the tort world is fascinating and a great story. As Carter buys into the lifestyle with a personal jet and home in the Carribbean yet seems unconcerned about settlements for his clients, you want to shake him. But those who rise quickly can fall the same way and the novel ends in a satisfying way.
Lots of subplots, interesting characters and fast paced action keeps you on pins and needles until the end of the story. I think this is a four star book, not quite at the level of his earlier works (The Firm and Pelican Brief), but a huge improvement over later works such as The Summons and The Brethren.
Rating: 3
Summary: Current-Events Class, Grisham-Style: But Not Much of A Novel
Comment: Grisham is in classic mode here in this pretty-OK book in which a drudged-out, burned-out lawyer is exposed to the glamorous, high-rolling world of class-action lawsuits. The lead character gets kicked upstairs from lowly public defender into mass litigator, a world that is superficially jet-set appealling but ultimately rife with greed and corruption and all but inescapable (sound familiar)?
I'm going to briefly sketch the plot in this paragraph so skip it if you don't want to hear--Clay Carter II of Washington, D.C. meets a mysterious type who gives him the inside dope on how to sue a drug company for surreptitiously testing a new drug inside the USA--completely against FDA rules--and pretty soon he gloms onto the perverse world of mass torts, USA style. The jury system be damned: it all depends on the leverage of data, and who can be blackmailed with it. Almost always neither the drug company wants a jury trial that would expose the corner-cutting and lobbying that puts its "miracle" (and sometimes carcinogenic) new drugs on the market; nor do the litigators who run inflammatory TV spot ads for 1-800 "hotlines" in order to gather lists of those who had been prescribed the drug, so that they can initiate class-action suits of thousands of plaintiffs vs. the drug company. (The lawyers can then take a cut of as much as forty percent of the award, and whether or not the amount of money that trickles down to the actual injured parties is enough doesn't much bother these vultures.)
As for the abuse of the tort system in terms of mass class-action suits, Grisham understands and reports the scenario pretty well. My experience with the overall silliness: because I was overcharged for some generic medications, and because my name was pulled off of some databases somewhere, I received two checks as part of mass settlements; the two together totalling less than two dollars. Pennies don't mean justice to me, but pennies times hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs, over and over, keep "superstud" attorneys in Gulfstreams and private islands and $250,000 Presidential dinners.
Aside from the current-events factor, though, KING OF TORTS has serious structural and generic flaws. Clay Carter II behaves "Just like a man," and I mean that literally: he acts just barely like a man, such a stereotype that after he makes the hop into the hyperspace of nine-figure earnings, despite a leavening of guilt he seems little more than a machine capable of work-drink-eat-drink more-work-drink-find something attractive to go to bed with. Though now a generation older, Grisham owes 32-year-old males more in the way of character development.
Worse yet is the way Grisham has become proficient in editing out Act III and thus eliminating a true climax from KING OF TORTS. The first and latter halves of this book do a great job of setting inexperienced Clay up for a true legal battle in front of a real jury with a REAL antagonist--a non-drug company that made a simple mistake--no politicking or skulduggery involved. That opportunity was denied when the whole Carter law firm was forced to shut down due to lack of werewithal. Imagine how indignant 1930s audiences would have felt if there had been no last reel of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington": if Congress had adjourned as Jimmy Stewart was running down the hall to give his marathon filibuster AND his seat was eliminated due to redistricting over the summer! That's a lot like what happened here.
I for one do not like it when an author creates a hero and then settles for a "Bermuda Triangle" ending, and that's what we have in this exposition, both ethically and geographically.
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Rating: 4
Summary: The Ending is Not the Book
Comment: In some of Grisham's latest works, the ending is not a wind-pipe punch as they could be (such as Last Juror), but he makes up for it by spinning such a fine tale until then. That's ofen life, right? The conclusion to an event often isn't as compelling as the event itself.
This audio book took us from Oklahoma to Nevada to Utah to Colorado and back to Oklahoma last year. It kept the pace of the dry landscape around us (especially western Oklahoma) and the otherwise-tedious hours going and going VERY well.
The intro grips us (again, unlike some like Last Juror) and the story that follows unravels itself nicely.
You may read reviewers who were disappointed in the ending but we were not. A knock-'em down stunner ending is always welcome but NOT always needed. It's a shame that so many base a book on the lack of such an ending.
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Title: Bleachers by John Grisham ISBN: 0385511612 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown ISBN: 0385504209 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: The Summons by John Grisham ISBN: 0440241073 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 17 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Angels & Demons by Dan Brown ISBN: 0671027360 Publisher: Pocket Star Pub. Date: 26 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Skipping Christmas by John Grisham ISBN: 0385508417 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 29 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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