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The King of Torts
 
 

The King of Torts (Paperback)

by John Grisham (Author) "THE SHOTS THAT FIRED the bullets that entered Pumpkin's head were heard by no less than eight people ..." (more)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd., London (20 Sep 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099416174
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099416173
  • Product Dimensions: 17.8 x 10.4 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 111,208 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #32 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > G > Grisham, John
    #59 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Law & Disorder > Issues > Drugs

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

John Grisham's The King of Torts demonstrates that his narrative skills remain as impeccable as ever. Grisham knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to transfixing the reader.

Within the high-powered milieu of the public defender's office in Washington DC, Grisham's protagonist is an ambitious young lawyer who finds himself saddled with what appears to be a nothing case: one of a wave of crack cocaine killings that are the bane of the capital. But as Clay Carter investigates, he finds that something more than a random street murder is involved here and a massive conspiracy becomes apparent. The stakes are suddenly very high indeed.

If the skulduggery here (involving one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world) is a tad familiar, Grisham remains nonpareil when it comes to delivering a smoothly engineered plot. A fresh touch is Carter's desire to break free from the routine cases he has been handling: this quickly becomes a case of beware what you wish for. Another innovative touch is the refusal to tie up the narrative in the expected ways: The King of Torts has much more verisimilitude in this area than most legal thrillers. One more thing, Grisham's prose now has a sardonic, satirical quality that suggests the Tom Wolfe of Bonfire of the Vanities. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.



Product Description

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 upon 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.

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THE SHOTS THAT FIRED the bullets that entered Pumpkin's head were heard by no less than eight people. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

81 Reviews
5 star:
 (22)
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 (19)
3 star:
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2 star:
 (9)
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (81 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great reading!, 14 Mar 2003
By Detra Fitch (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: The King of Torts (Hardcover)
Clay Carter had worked at the Office of the Public Defender for too long. His uptown girlfriend, Rebecca, wanted to stop working, get married, buy a large home, and have children. Her parents keep sticking their rich noses into the situation also. Of course, this made the situation worse, especially when her daddy gets Clay a high paying job (thinking Clay would never be able to get a better one on his own) and expected Clay to snatch it up. But Clay refused to be beholden to her family or under their thumb, even if it meant losing Rebecca.

Things changed when Max Pace entered the picture. Max became Clay's source to getting several cases against pharmaceutical companies. Clay's settlements would change his life. Then he stumbled upon a conspiracy too horrible to believe!

**** While reading this book I kept being reminded of John Grisham's last novel. I now believe it was foreshadowing this book. There is nothing shocking to the reader here or any unexpected twists. Any reader with a lick of sense will easily be able to predict what is going to happen in the main character's near and distant future. However, the story is still pure joy to read and written in a way that only John Grisham can do. Recommended reading! ****

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Grisham is finally back!, 10 Feb 2003
By Steen Soerensen "Iceman" (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The King of Torts (Hardcover)
Greed is good or is it? These are the words that best describe 'The King of Torts'. Having read all of Mr. Grisham's previous books and been thoroughly disappointed by some of the most recent ones ('A Painted House' & 'The Summons') I didn't quite know what to expect this time. However, Mr. Grisham is after all the author of some of the most exiting legal thrillers I have ever read ('A Time to Kill', 'The Pelican Brief', etc.) and I therefore decided to give him another chance. Luckily he didn't let me down this time - 'The King of Torts' is without doubt the best Grisham book in years!

The book presents the often repeated and much used story-line "Lawyers are greedy, bottom-feeding sharks and generally a menace to society" - so there is nothing new here. Nevertheless, the story is interesting and the book in many parts proved to be a real page-turner.

The story centers around a bright young public defender, Clay Carter, who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and therefore reluctantly ends up defending a young man charged with murder. Carter, who is overworked and underpaid, and to a certain extent scarred by his father's premature 'retirement' from the legal profession is fed up with his current job. His relationship with his long-term girlfriend (and her obnoxious parents) is also suffering and he is therefore easy prey for the mysterious Mr. Pace, who approaches him with a deal too good to turn down - a deal that could make him the new King of Torts.

Driven by his desire to succeed and the promise of massive cash rewards Carter soon finds himself attacking 'corporate evil' i.e. one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, who knowingly has launched a faulty drug into the market.

Although Carter does not know it yet he will soon realize that he is in way over his head and that only a very thin line separates 'The King of Torts' from 'The King of Shorts'....

At times some parts were far fetched but overall I believe Grisham in 'The King of Torts' has found the balance of being descriptive without being too wordy and thorough without becoming boring.

This book is vintage Grisham - a good and suspenseful read that kept me interested the whole way and I would therefore recommend it to anyone interested in this genre.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Familiarity is not necessarily a bad thing..., 10 Feb 2003
This review is from: The King of Torts (Hardcover)
John Grisham's books are like the slogan for a tin of varnish "It does what it says on the tin". So his latest offering, "The King of Torts", seems very familiar and, like all his other books I had to keep reading it until the end to find out what happens.
The story is of a struggling lawyer, J Clay Carter II, who is suddenly catapaulted into fabulous wealth beyond his dreams because he stumbles across a nasty drug which leads to those taking it killing people. This case leads to him being fed more cases by a shady character and then he joins that group of American lawyers who look for mass tort cases so they can sue big business and rake off a share of the profits. But can he handle the pressure? And who are really your friends in this business? Are the victims those injured by bad products or the businesses that the lawyers target (who could be bankrupted as a result), or both? Indeed, as the book races along, could the whole thing ultimately destroy him? I won't tell you, because that will spoil it, but this isn't just a story about the law. It's a human interest story where morality and greed and the value of human relationships are explored.
It's because it's not just about the law, but about people, that I thoroughly recommend this as yet another John Grisham legal masterpiece. Just like all his others, which isn't a bad thing if that's what you want from a John Grisham book!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Ho Hum
Would have made a good short story. Or a great novel, had it been written by Dickens.
Published 5 months ago by Richard J. Taylor

2.0 out of 5 stars Should have been so much better
The first half of this novel is great - just what you would expect from Grisham. The scene is set for a spectatular fall from grace by a young lawyer who lets greed take over his... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Hayles

5.0 out of 5 stars From a Pauper to a King and Back Again
Clay Carter is a bottom feeder in the legal world. He's wasting away in the Washington, D.C., public defender's office, representing drug dealers, drug addicts and even sometimes... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Stephanie Sane

5.0 out of 5 stars Typically Grisham, I was Up all Night
This book is the story of Clay Carter, a thirty-one-year-old D.C. public defender who lives a simple life but wants so much more. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Maggie Mae

4.0 out of 5 stars Greed Expose
I found this book particularly interesting because I work in health care. Health care has spawned the side industry of health-related legal settlements. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Douglas P. Murphy

3.0 out of 5 stars An efficient legal documentary
As an introduction to Grisham's field, The King of Torts is a little hard going. It manages to combine page-turning enthusiasm with a believable fiction, but with a level of... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Polbecca

3.0 out of 5 stars Unusual tale.
I found this book disappointing, and not as gripping as the usual Grisham books.He has a message to get across about the pursuit of wealth and how easy it can become the sole... Read more
Published 15 months ago by cancat reader

5.0 out of 5 stars A Deal with the Devil is Never What it's Cracked Up to Be
Clay Carter is thirty-one, has a girl friend he cares about and works for the Office of the Public Defender in Washington DC. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Katie Osborne

4.0 out of 5 stars Greed
If you thought you didn't like lawyers before....wait to you read about the world of mass torts. The lawyers find a large corporation that has put out a faulty product and they... Read more
Published on 7 Oct 2007 by M. A. Ramos

1.0 out of 5 stars king of torts ? more like King of Warts
This was my first Grisham for a number of years, my previous reads were typical Grisham 'classics', a Time to Kill through to the Partner, but this is such a dire book I think... Read more
Published on 28 Aug 2007 by K. GOODCHILD

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