The King of Torts

by John Grisham

Book Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - 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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385508042
• ISBN13: 9780385508049
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Doubleday Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

excellent audiobook CDs in spanish

sometimes slightly corny, but that just creates a pace. Very happy with purchase and accompanying book. I slowly work on perfecting my spanish listening skills because I want to live in a Spanish speaking country, this has everyday things scattered in with the plot related stuff.

Very Good and Original

I'm a John Grisham fan, but his latest legal thrillers have tended to be formulaic-you could pretty much figure the outcome. The King of Torts departs from his usual, small-guy-takes-on-the-system-and-flees-the-country story. In this, he sheds light on the dark side of the legal profession, with money-grubbing lawyers combing the marketplace for mass tort legislation. And they don't do it out of a sense of justice, they do it because the money is there. I had always had this beef with the tobacco legislation. Nobody wants kids to smoke, but the real truth is that in the end, the money goes to the lawyers. The same is with the attacks on the pharmaceutical companies and so forth. Watch, out Big Food!!Anyway, Grisham doesn't let lawyers or big companies off the hook and he further educates the common man on the inner workings of the legal system. I have learned more about the law reading Grisham than anything else. This is a great book and it doesn't have the usual ending or twist that he likes to include in his legal plots. It's original, witty, humorous, and drives home a poignant message. You'll enjoy this at the top of your stack of books, resting on your nightstand.

Letter of the law versus the spirit of the intent

I have read ALL of Grisham's works -- even before he was well known. I usually like his storylines, but according to a National Public Radio interview, Grisham's wife is encouraging him to move his basic storyline away from the concept of "redemption." I hope he doesn't (I need some redemption in my life). Since I heard the interview prior to completing his book, I sensed the ending - and I was correct. Yet, I don't think that people continue to read Grisham to get a surprise. People continue to read Grisham because he is a master of the written word. His words flow like a film and create pictures in one's mind. Thus, the interview didn't damage my reading of his novel.Without regard to the lack of a surprise ending, I immediately saw something extremely valuable in this novel. As a college professor, I teach a policy course. Policy courses are generally hated by students. One policy concept I try teach is: "letter of the law versus the spirit of the intent." The central theme in the KING OF TORTS embraces this complex concept for which many of my students have difficulty in understanding. In an effort to have students understand, I offered a brief outline of the KINGS OF TORTS (without destroying the story) and recommended they read it. Here, tort lawyers comply with the letter of the law (perhaps some push the envelop a bit much), but it is clear that these lawyers do not embrace the spirit for which laws were designed to protect citizens against unscrupulous manufacturers. Now, students understand what is meant by "letter of the law versus the spirit of the intent" without having to be punished by a lecture from me or the extremely dry writing from our textbook.In the end, I like Grisham's writing and look forward to his next novel.

Grisham Returns to Top Form! A Great Read

THE KING OF TORTS is John Grisham doing what John Grisham does best (and what he used to do more regularly) - present a compelling legal thriller which reads quickly and delivers a solid message. Granted, Grisham rarely rises to the level of "literature" (maybe once, in A TIME TO KILL) and he does not go so in depth with his characters or plot lines as, say, Scott Turow, but he is the undisputed master of the quick-hit legal thriller. Yet some of his recent offerings - THE TESTAMENT, THE STREET LAWYER, THE SUMMONS - have been devoid of the power punch that his mid-90s works had (I left out THE BRETHREN from that critique as I thought it was excellent). Well, THE KING OF TORTS returns to the level of, say, THE RUNAWAY JURY or THE CHAMBER in delivering both a quick and thrilling story and a message about something wrong with the American legal system. Without ruining too much of the plot (there are some excellent twists along the way), THE KING OF TORTS follows the rise of a lawyer who had been toiling as a Washington D.C. Public Defender before stumbling into a multi-million dollar venture as a mass tort lawyer suing companies for faulty drugs. Grisham allows the reader to share the thrill of all the new money that lands on the main character - before slowly pulling open the curtain on some serious institutional and ethical problems with this type of lawyering. There are some very memorable characters in this book - most notably a colorful expert mass tort lawyer who befriends and partners with the main character - but the tone of the book follows Grisham's usual depth (nothing too involved) and at time, Grisham (as he has always done) paints characters in black or white - this is a guy you hate; this other person is a saint. Still, that is a formula that always worked well for him, and most happily, THE KING OF TORTS is a return to the "social consciousness" aspect of his writing (taking on the death penalty in THE CHAMBER; the tobacco lobby in THE RUNAWAY JURY) - notably absent in THE SUMMONS - he forces the reader to ask, does all the litigation against big business really HELP the citizens injured by those businesses? Does it just help the lawyers? Both? Are legal reforms which cap jury award a good thing? A hurtful thing? And on THAT topic, Grisham paints in grays, leaving the reader to ponder the right answer. (Other lawyers may read this book as a blueprint on how to make $100 million in one year without working to hard... though I think that boat has sailed). THis book is an excellent commentary on a recent/current legal fad, as well as a return to what is my favorite aspect of Grisham's writing. Grisham fans will be happy that the author is back to peak form.

Amazingly Surprising

This books was amazing, I was surprised to see that John Grisham has returned to his legal classics. Last year, The Summons was a good book, but when you look at this book, this is a masterpiece. This was riviting, definetely a thriller till the end. Clay intrigued the reader with his antics and his skills. Something different about this book was that we were able to know more about Clay then most of the Grisham's characters. Clay was more personable. Also his wit was clever and the fact that a young'n was able to play with the big hotshots and become The King of Torts, (even though Ms. Warshaw "intervened"), was truly amazing.Great book, better than his past two legal thrillers!