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The King Of Torts
 
 

The King Of Torts [Kindle Edition]

John Grisham
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)

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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

Review

No manuscript available, but the publishers describe The King of Torts as a legal thriller set in Washington DC. An aspiring young lawyer in the Public Defender's office is assigned a case that appears to be nothing more than one of many crack cocaine murders in the capital. However, he delves deeper and begins to uncover a conspiracy that is bigger than him and perhaps bigger than the justice system itself. It's something of a truism to say that Grisham's inspiration has been fitful of late, but his sales rarely falter; The King of Torts will no doubt get the punters forking out their shekels.

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 543 KB
  • Print Length: 482 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0440241537
  • Publisher: Cornerstone Digital (21 April 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B003IDMUS6
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #12,357 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format: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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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Great reading! 14 Mar 2003
By Detra Fitch TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format: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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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By fooxman
Format:Hardcover
Having read most of John Grishams previous novels I eagerly awaited the 'King of Torts' the book starts of brilliantly with the excellent character development and pacey plot that Grisham fans expect. It wasn't until I was half way through that I started to realise this book was seriously below par.

Grishams books are hard to fault due to his extensive research and brilliant writing style, he manages to twist and turn the plot without throwing the reader off, but this excellent writing style was completely lacking in the second half of the book.

Whilst I appreciate this is not supposed to be a 'thriller' (unlike most of his efforts) I found the book suddenly lost pace and became predictable after such a good start, it seemed like Mr Grisham had lost interest in the excellent tale he'd set out to tell and instead just switched off.

Rent this book from a library if you're a Grisham fan, it's not even worth the discounted price unfortunately...

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Read After Another Legal Battle
I was apprehensive at the blurb, as I'd recently read another legal-style book (yes, an actual book!). But I shouldn't have waited, as this was superb.
Published 2 months ago by Nik Watt
Love of money is the root of all evil.
This is a very easy book to read and generally improves as you get through it. There are couple of places where I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief - but as the story... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Craig Hall
I wasn't particularly impressed
I'm afraid to say I wasn't particularly impressed by this Grisham. Clay Carter is a run-of-the-mill public defender in Washington when he's offered an unbelievable opportunity, to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by J. R. Johnson-Rollings
Promised so much, gave so little
As I started to read this book I thought it was going to be good, however as I carried on, the book never fully took off and I found myself disappointed with the outcome. Read more
Published 12 months ago by G. Harrison
King of torts - a great read
The King of Torts is a great read, I would recommend this to anybody.

As Clay Carter quickly jumps from small town public defender to the high flying filer of mass tort... Read more
Published 20 months ago by J. Marshall
Ho Hum
Would have made a good short story. Or a great novel, had it been written by Dickens.
Published on 20 May 2009 by Richard J. Taylor
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 on 24 Mar 2009 by Hayles
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 on 4 Mar 2009 by Maggie Mae
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 on 7 Nov 2008 by Douglas P. Murphy
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 on 3 Oct 2008 by Polbecca
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