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The King of Torts

The King of Torts

List Price: $31.95
Your Price: $20.13
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW !!!!!
Review: Dont let anyone tell you this book is boring, infact it is anything but that. The pace is real fast and I enjoyed the yarn thoroughly. This is more on the grisham main stream track than "the last juror". Although this book is not the firm,pelican brief type. In places it reads like the "life and times :documentary of crooked lawyers" who make money out of mass tort cases. I dont know if it's as bad in real life, but anyways its labelled fiction I guess for any story you have to stretch things a bit. Its a power rise story. Those who like to read books on the lifestyles on the rich and famous theme will love it coz this book is abt power, money and high ambitions. This book is abt getting filthy rich in very little time.Dont look for the ending, as in most of the recent Grisham novels the overall book experience is cherishable. Enjoy the moments in the book.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good Read
Review: Interesting insight into tort law and class action suits even though it is fiction. Enjoyed the story, characters were easy to keep up with. Not a page turner for me. Better than the Testament and Runaway Jury. Enjoy Grisham's writing style. I enjoyed The Last Juror more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Ending is Not the Book
Review: In some of Grisham's latest works, the ending is not a knock-out punch as they could be (such as Last Juror), but he makes up for it by spinning such a fine tale until then. That's often life, right? The conclusion to an event often isn't as compelling as the event itself.

This audio book took us from Oklahoma to Nevada to Utah to Colorado and back to Oklahoma last year. It kept the pace of the dry landscape around us (especially western Oklahoma) and the otherwise-tedious hours going and going VERY well.

The intro grips us (again, unlike some like Last Juror) and the story that follows unravels itself nicely.

You may read reviewers who were disappointed in the ending but we were not. A knock-'em down stunner ending is always welcome but NOT always needed. It's a shame that so many base a book on the lack of such an ending.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: YAWN
Review: I normally love John Grisham's books but I'm having a hard time with this one. I am more than 1/2 way through & it's killing me to continue reading it. It's very boring and that is highly unusual for Grisham's work. Unfortunately for me, I am the type of person who HAS to finish a book...no matter how good (or bad) it is. Please let the misery end!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Boring!
Review: Young lawyer lucks out, gets rich, gets greedy, learns lesson. Hardly to the standard I expected from this author.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If a man has integrity . . . .
Review: There's an old line in morality. I'm not certain where it comes from although aspects of it are several hundred if not a thousand years old. It goes like this: "If a man or woman has integrity, nothing else matters. If a man or woman lacks integrity . . . nothing else matters."

So we find Clay Carter, a disgruntled burned out lawyer, given a chance to sell his soull. How much is it worth? How much can you sell integrity for, Grisham ponders?

Clay Carter sells his soul for 10 million dollars, and eventually comes to regret it.

Like characters in some of James Crumley's novels, you don't really care for anyone in the book. All of them, father, son, friends, associates, enemies, all are cloaked in varying degrees of despicability. All are tainted by greed, and that his friends who profited so greatly by Carter's greed return a portion of their gold to Carter to soften his eventual fall from grace, or the return of his true love, Rebecca, you still don't like any of them. At least I didn't. Like the lovely sirens in myth singing seamen to watery graves, Clays meteoric rise to wealth is surpassed equally by his meteoric fall.

Grisham paints a dreary picture of the moral ambivalence of the legal profession, but unlike his characters in The Firm and Pelican, none rise above their greed. Clay is corrupted by his greed and in turn corrupts his friends. If you listen closely you'll hear Pink Floyd's chorus, 'money, money, money, money.'

It's a good story and shouldn't be ignored. Mr. Grisham may be getting truly cynical however because while there was always a 'one good lawyer' character in his earlier works, we are really left with Grisham's indictment, there may be 'no good lawyers.'

I hope that's not true. At least one would like to believe it isn't true. If there is a weakness in the book, it is simultaneously a long, long walk to get across the street while at the same time the climax lacks any real retribution. Living the rest of your life in London with the girl of your dreams surrounded by great theater and tremendous Rugby sure beats the heck out of five years in prison.

Maybe 100 pages shorter would have made it less of an effort. It was pretty clear when it took the first 100 pages to get to the issues that it wasn't going anywhere fast. Larry Scantlebury

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What was this book about???
Review: I have read almost all of Grisham's books and have thoroughly enjoyed them. I started King of Torts expecting to have a good read. His stories do follow a formula, but it's usually interesting: good lawyer, bad lawyers, someone running for their life, and lots of money. As usual, his engaging style kept me turning pages, but I kept wondering when the plot was going to go somewhere. I could not believe it when I finished and realized that was all there was. So many story points headed in possibly exciting directions and not one of them panned out. I would say this book was a good first half of a novel. Unfortunately, it never comes to a climax or resolution. It's like telling a joke and forgeting the punchline. I was very disappointed. Was the whole thing about the evils of rapid wealth? If so, even that point was poorly made. I can't believe this got published. I hope Grisham puts a little more into his future works.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Entertaining, but where is the ending?
Review: Grisham has the power to entertain which continues with King of Torts. A frustrated lawyer in the public defenders office gets a taste of wealth and fame that proves to be addicting and takes him on a wild ride that can only end in disaster. Along the way, this book is an indictment (and education for the reader) against greedy lawyers who grow wealthy through the filing of mass class actions. What makes Grisham so enjoyable is his ability to make the characters seem alive. In this book, I found myself wondering what I would do in such a situation. The reader is a fly on the wall of the tale of a protagonist on a downward moral spiral worthy of a rock star. Unfortunately, just when the plot starts to climax, the book screeches to a halt. Although he created a great story-line, Grisham owed us an ending too.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Standard Grisham
Review: The first John Grisham book I have read in several years, The King of Torts both reminds me of what I liked about Grisham and why I stopped reading his work. Once again, Grisham has put together a book that is reasonably entertaining and fast-moving while not being all that well-written. The story is the essentially Faustian story of a struggling lawyer who sells his soul for prosperity, rising to great heights by compromising his integrity. He has it all - wealth, fame, a beautiful model for a girlfriend - but like all deals with the devil, it eventually all goes sour in a big way.

In Clay Carter, Grisham reworks many of the protagonists from his previous novels. Clay is morally and ethically challenged (not unlike the "heroes" of The Firm, The Runaway Jury and The Brethren). He thinks he's an okay guy, but in the end, he gives in to greed and is willing to sell out almost anyone in his climb to the top. Unfortunately, Clay is the only well-defined character in the book; many characters, such as his long-time girlfriend, are not all that interesting (it's hard to understand why Clay is so obsessed with her), and other characters (such as her parents) are little more than cookie-cutter stereotypes.

This is an okay book and a page-turner, but hardly more than three-star quality. For Grisham veterans, this will be not a disappointment or a pleasure, but merely par for the course for a writer is just slightly above par, and as strong an indication as any that being a best-selling author is not the same as being a great one.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Grisham shows his weaknesses
Review: No one confuses John Grisham with Ernest Hemmingway, but he has show a talent for creating well crafted stories in the past. And he continues to do so here, weaving the story of the rise of one lawyer who essentially sells his soul to become the titular king of torts. If you know Grisham, you know what to expect - quick action, simple writing, legalese and a quick resolution. The problem here is that he tries to build up some characters but never delivers on them. Most prominently is the character of the model Ridley, who he gives dubious motives and hints that there is more than meets the eye, but then just drops her out of the story when convenient. A lot of wasted efforts to produce such a throwaway character. Essentially this book, like the others, are perfect airport reads - pick it up, enjoy it for what it is and let it while away the time while you wait.


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