Rating: 
Summary: Hi $ Oppty--Some Legal Knldge Req'd
Review: "King of Torts" gives in fiction form a primer on the difference between tort law practice and mass tort boiler room scam practice. In the former, a victim of corporate wrongdoing is compensated, either through a verdict after a trial or an out-of-court settlement. In the latter, fast buck operators who've passed the bar exam contact thousands of victims promising a settlement to them if they will join their plaintiff class. They then come to a settlement with the offending company, take out a huge cut for themselves, and split up the paltry remains among their thousands of "clients". The focus is not justice or law or compassion, but fast profit, almost as if the class of victims were a block of stock options to be exercised at the most opportune moment.
Clay Carter, Grisham's protagonist, never takes a case to trial, seldom even sees the inside of a courtroom. Instead, his resources are poured into advertising for victims to enlarge his plaintiff classes, and into the trappings of wealth to show his prospective clients that he has pulled off big scores in the past. After they sign with him, his client/victims get a couple of phone calls, a perfunctory medical exam, and a few months later, a check that is woefully low in light of what they have suffered.
The companies that are the targets of Carter's assaults are crippled financially, sometimes driven into backruptcy, throwing thousands out of work. In one case this results in some painful retaliation on Carter, which is satisfying enough to the casual reader. But to those who read this to gain a greater understanding of the diseased tort law system, the ray of hope seems to be personified in the lawyer who steps in toward the end of the story to form a plaintiff class of Carter's dead or dying former clients. A plan is formed to sue him for a crime that seems to be all too rarely prosecuted: legal malpractice.
Not being a lawyer, I can't tell how realistic the circumstances underpinning this tale are. The dollar amounts seem high, but then the normal fee for a normal lawyer seems high to me. If Grisham's hyperbole in "King of Torts" is only minor, then he has done the public a service in illuminating a serious public problem.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time...
Review: I love John Grisham, at least the old John Grisham. THE FIRM and THE PELICAN BRIEF were classics. Underdog lawyer trying to do the right thing, terrible greed, and exciting plot twists that kept the pages turning very fast. But The KING OF TORTS was just a story of the underdog lawyer, so to speak, immense greed, but no interesting subplots or twists that kept you going. At page 324, I decided to skip ahead to page 424 to finish it. I found that I missed nothing in those 100 pages that I didn't read that I couldn't figure out by page 427. This book left me very unsatisfied, as did the wwful THE SUMMONS and wondering if John Grisham has just lost his original touch to write a great legal thriller. I hope not.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Grisham book ever...
Review: I'm a fan of John Grisham and I've read almost all his books.This 'King of Torts' was absolutely crap! When I finished it I actually checked and double checked the author, yes it said John Grisham... Couldn't believe it... Remi
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: I've read 5-6 Grisham novels and they usually keep my attention and interest. This one is the worst by far. Some have said this one was preachy in that it showed his disdain for these types of lawsuits and lawyers. I didn't get that -- it seemed to me that he was almost excusing them. After all, the main character never redeems himself. Furthermore, this novel seemed to just trudge along. Half the book is about the wealth and possessions Clay acquires. I mean literally -- he buys this, that and then some more of this and a building to put them in.... Zzzz...
Also, the characters in this novel were very one dimensional and bland. The most interesting is Ridley, Clay's supermodel, trophy girlfriend!
While I don't think the end is predictable (I was hoping the character would right some wrongs or go to jail) it is anticlimactic and disappointing. It is as if it is saying, "Clay did all this stuff wrong, hurt all these people, allowed an innocent man to go to jail for life, but Clay is okay in the end and that's what matters." I hope Grisham's next is better...of course in my opinion it won't be too hard.
Rating: 
Summary: cool movie
Review: If you're looking for a good page-turner I'd recommend this book. I found the lead character likeable, and his ride to riches, fun and exciting. The story whooshed along like a cool movie you can't take your eyes off. (I kept seeing Charlie Sheen as Carter). I wish Grisham gave this book a little more substance and suspense towards the end so I could give it more than 3 stars, but it still was a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: John Grisham does it again! It takes a lot to capture me! This one is right there with Terri Bailey's, "Cries of the Orchids" and "Bleachers." John Grisham is such an awesome writer!
Rating:
Summary: Heard any good lawyer jokes lately? How about stories?
Review: My My, here's another good book with average reviews. Must have been a bunch of lawyers reviewing Grishams latest book. Ok, here's Mr D's high Four Star review. So start with a lawyer joke. Question: What is six Lawyers bound and gagged at the bottom of a lake?
Answer: A good start. I'm not a proponent of hanging all lawyers from the nearest tree, there are some decent hard working ones, but I personally would like to see a few in hell. Now John Grisham on the otherhand, is a winner when it comes to the law. He writes about about unsavory unethical members of the legal profession and makes millions doing it. Good for him. He's strayed a couple times but his best work is legal thrillers, and don't you get the feeling that it's a labor of love. That he despises the profession as much as we do and gets his jollies exposing unscrupulous characters. Oh sure it's fiction but can you doubt the truth is far away. The King of Torts like many of Grisham's novels is a story with a moral, no make that two morals. Moral one is that easy money leads to greed which leads to unscrupulous behavior, which then leads to a win at all costs mentality. Moral two I'm saving for later. Our protagonist, J Clay Carter, scoffed at the silliness of the wanton spending and bravado of the mass tort lawyers at a mass tort convention one week and two weeks later was coveting their possessions and several months later buying one expensive toy after another. This novel starts out slowly with our quasi-hero J Clay Carter, who is a Washington DC public defender, getting corraled into taking murder case of a young black male, Tequila Watson who inexplicably shot another y.b.m for no apparent reason. J. Clay Carter has been a P.D. for five years and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. This annoys the lovely Rebbecca, Clay's girlfriend of four years and her gruesome parents to no end. At one time Clay's star shone very bright as his father was a prominent DC litigator and the plan was for Clay to join him. That plan fell through when the father was about to be indicted for some offense and made a deal with an assistant Attorney General to give up the practice and leave the country. This obviously narrowed Clay's options so he become a low paid P.D. Back to Tequila Watson. As Clay looked into Tequila's case, it didn't make much sense because Tequila only had a passing acquaintance with the victim, didn't have a history of violence and he himself didn't know why he shot the victim. Tequila was on a two hour pass from an inner city drug rehab lockdown joint when the incident happened so he went their for the records and gets stonewalled. In the meantime Clay's romance hits the rocks and they break up. The next day at 5:30 in the morning Clay gets a call from a Max Pace, with an offer of a lucrative job but when he gets there Max has a different agenda. It seems he is a fireman, as in damage control, for a large drug conglomeration. It seems that this drug company was surreptitiously testing a new drug called Tarvan, which killed any addiction. Unfortunately it made killers out of five percent of the addicts. Max Pace proposed that Clay quit the Public Defenders office, take a couple of their more talented employees with him and open up his own office whereupon he was to enlist the families of these senseless random murders as clients and pay them each five million dollars for their releases.
Clay was to receive the gross figure of fifteen million. When this is complete, the mysterious Max sets Clay up for another windfall, a mammoth class action suit against another drug company. Clay jumps in and is soon joined by every major ambulance chaser in the country in a mega suit. Don't you just love it, the egomaniac sleazy lawyers in a battle to the death against the equally distasteful legal drug monopolies. As time progresses Clay's company needs to grows to accommodate the massive lawsuit, which means that they need more suits to cover the spiraling expenses. Of course Clay's accountant is worried but Clay constantly reminds him that "if you want to make it, you got to spend it". I'm sure you don't want to know the ending so I'm stopping here. Oh, and moral number two is, "Money isn't everything", although the author is fabulously rich.
Rating:
Summary: Not Very Exciting
Review: Starts out good. Gets really slow in the middle. Predictable ending. The book is constantly going on and on about how much money the main character is spending. Guess what happens to him in the end? Yeah, your right.
Not one of Grisham's best but he has proved his worth in the past and I will continue reading whatever he publishes.
Rating: 
Summary: Great change of pace
Review: The King of Torts stands as testiment as to why John Grisham is the King of the Thriller novel. His ability to change pace, yet retain all the necessities of boldness, involvement, and redemption, I think, prove my point. This novel is a learning experience for all of us. It shows vividly how the Tort system, through this abomination of the "Class Action Law Suit," is a needless dredge on society--little more than a device for legalized extortion. Just one example: When a team of lawyers can organize a group of airline passengers to sue an airline, and win for them, maybe, a free plane ticket each, the lawyers, individually, walk off with millions of big ones with which to line their own pockets. This sort of thing is happening, all around us, just about every day. This book is a great lesson, an in-depth examination of the "System." He has done us all a great favor by stripping bare the innards, guts and entrails of what makes this the leach-like, blood-sucking process what it is. While the Master paints his usual artistic suspense-portrait, his revelations, alone, make this book a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Not one of my favorite books
Review: This book started off really well, and I was preparing for a wonderful story. I was dissapointed. The story drags, and you tend to get really tired of it. If you have no interest in law, then you may find this book boring. The story is very predictable, and comes off as just a moral lesson. Clay Carter who starts off as the good and humble guy, gets greedy. He pays a huge price for his greed. and then gets back with the love of his life at the end. Not one of my favorite books.
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