Book Review / The King of Torts by John Grisham

The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.

As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life--that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession's newest king of torts...





Published:    27th December 2005
Publisher:  Delta
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source: Owned

MY  REVIEW

Now this is what you call a page turner!  I just could not put this down...  This is the style of legal thriller that drew me into reading John Grisham's books in the first place and this one just took me right back to the first time I read one of his books.

We follow Clay Carter who is a young lawyer who works for the Office of the Public Defender.  His girlfriend and her family have high hopes of her marrying someone that is a high achiever and high earner and, at this time, Clay just isn't it.  On his own, Clay gets an offer of a lifetime.  Soon he has started his new business and is raking in the money.  Could it be as easy as this to gain money and legal fame?

There are so many things I loved about this book but if I had to pick one it would have to be the legal process.  Following Clay as he makes his different legal moves, how he deals with clients and how he deals with colleagues.  We follow the process of massive complex medical legal cases and how these are 'negotiated'.  I have to be honest and say that I didn't really care for the way that he treated his new girlfriend, as a sort of play thing and a sort of status play but that was such a minor part in this story it really didn't bother me that much but I guess at the moment he makes the decision to be with her he has lost all sense of reason anyway in the bigger picture.  I also enjoyed the ending but would have loved something a bit more explosive than what we had.

That said, I loved this story and the writing.  It was so good to delve into a really great legal thriller.