Product Description

The Office of the Public Defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has not 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 Washington 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...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49251 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

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

From the Publisher
John Grisham's bestselling backlist repackaged with fantastic new covers

From the Back Cover
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 Washington 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...

'Grisham reigns supreme... The King of Torts is another tremendous tour de force' Sunday Express

' A rollercoaster ride' Time

'Grisham at his best, combining a gripping plot and an illuminating insight into the seamier side of legal business' Mariella Frostrup, Open Book

Customer Reviews

Great reading!
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! ****

Grisham is finally back!
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.

Familiarity is not necessarily a bad thing...
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!