The King of Torts by John Grisham

Review by Vicki Carver  
[large print edition]  [audio book on CD] [audio book on tape]

John Grisham has become a very well known author since his first book, A Time To Kill, was published in 1993. Since that time Grisham has continued to write novels concerning the complex issues which are encountered by the legal system in our country.  He has also diverged from writing about law in two other novels, The Painted House, and Skipping Christmas.

 Grisham’s newest novel, The King of Torts, involves a young lawyer, Clay Carter, who is at the bottom of the pay scale working in a dead-end job as a public defender in Washington D.C.  While working with a young client accused of a senseless murder, Carter learns of a pharmaceutical company’s cover-up of a drug which had caused his client to commit the murder.  There are other potential murderers on the drug still out on the streets of Washington D.C. 

Carter is offered the opportunity to expose the pharmaceutical company and make millions of dollars in the process.  Most tort cases never go to court and are settled by victims receiving a modest monetary award and the participating lawyers making enough money to purchase private planes for themselves.  As Carter gets drawn into the web of deceit, power and notoriety of being a tort lawyer, he begins to lose sight of his former values and buys into his new lucrative lifestyle.

Carter’s stormy relationship with his girlfriend Rebecca is also interwoven into the plot.  Rebecca is from a very wealthy family and Carter is caught in a dilemma to make money in order to find acceptance with her family.  With time Carter and Rebecca learn that money is not what makes a relationship work. 

The most chilling aspect of reading a Grisham novel is the realization that our legal system is so realistically portrayed.  There are lawyers who are exploiting their positions as The King of Torts illustrates so well.

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