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    The King of Torts
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    The King of Torts
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    The King of Torts
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    The King of Torts

    Written by John Grisham

    Narrated by Dennis Boutsikaris

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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 D.C. every week.

    As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on 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...


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 4, 2003
    ISBN9780739302231
    Unavailable
    The King of Torts

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    Reviews for The King of Torts

    3.5/5

    1,234 ratings36 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Good read, but I got to wondering how the lead character could possibly be so obtuse and naive. By the time you are half way through the book, the remainder of the story is obvious. No unexpected twists here.
    • 4/5
      Another Grisham book ticked off my list. I don't remember having read this one before. The author has blended his usual mix of courtroom drama, rich lawyers and powerful companies in this novel. It will have you hooked until the last page.

      I actually preferred this novel to The Street Lawyer which I also read recently. I didn't like the way that Grisham had focused on charity/benevolent work amongst the homeless almost as a selfish pursuit for the young lawyer to find himself. This novel, however, was different--it is totally secular with no real mention of faith/God or anything similar. Sometimes it is better not to try and mix the spiritual with the secular unless you are going to be accurate and ensure you represent the right principles.

      This novel tells the story of Clay, a young lawyer struggling to make a name for himself at a little known firm. He is approached apparently randomly by a man who promises riches and fame if he follows his instructions to the letter. The requirements seem at first to be ethical and Clay is drawn into the web. He becomes a millionaire and the King of Torts leading mass civil litigation where-ever it exists. But it all seems a little too good to be true.......

      The biblical principles in this novel are obvious. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. The rich man went away sad when Jesus suggested he should give up his wealth. Another man stored up wealth in barns but was called a fool when God took his life and he wasn't prepared to meet his Maker. We are told not to love the world or anything in the world. There are numerous warnings about those who choose money over God. Even from a less religious perspective we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely....

      Most people are chasing money in some form or another. The point that this novel makes is that even when one gains more of it than they know what to do with. They will not be happy. It brings out the consequences in terms of friendships, relationships, health and just generally the emptiness of a life focused on temporary things that will be worthless in eternity.

      This is a good book for those who believe that if they get that promotion, that new house, that new car or whatever it might be, it will satisfy. It won't.

      There is some bad language and violence but nothing graphic. There are sexual inferences and some lude remarks but again not graphic.

      What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his own soul.

    • 3/5
      Meh. I was disappointed with this one. I wasn't expecting great literature, but past experience had led me to believe I'd at least get an interesting story with some likable characters. It's the tale of Clay Carter, a public defender who gets an unusual opportunity to file a class action claim against a big company. (I guess that falls under the category of tort law. Hence the title.) Clay is a likable fellow, but makes some bad choices. Very obvious bad choices. But, hey, you have to have some conflict, right? I figured we'd end up with a little redemption, a little turn around. Well, it was little all right. I really should have just reread The Last Juror or The Testament.--J.
    • 2/5
      Not a mystery nor a thriller... rather a "rise and fall" story of a young lawyer who enters the field of mass tort law. At least it wasn't as annoying to me as his A Time to Kill (I know lots of people love this one but I found it repugnant)! Too bad that this confirmed my decision to stop reading Grisham because I really like his earlier books...
    • 3/5
      Disappointing read. It starts with the potential of being a good thriller, but goes nowhere. I kept expecting some twist somewhere, but nothing happened. Just basic story of greed will get you in trouble. Don't buy it, read it from the library.
    • 4/5
      Not my favourite Grisham novel but a very interesting one. Watching how fast someone can rise and then fall in the worlds is utterly fascinating to me.
    • 3/5
      All Grisham's novels tend to be forgettable for me, but I am always taken in by the subject matter (which is after all a part of my profession). They tend to be formulaic and this one is no exception.
    • 4/5
      Without spoiling the story, I can say that this novel is a bell-curve novel. Read it, and find out.
    • 3/5
      Read a lot of Grisham's books in past years - before I started keeping track .....
      Enjoyed this one.
      His are always a recommend - until . . . . you get tired of the genre . . .
      Read in 2005.
    • 4/5
      Greedy lawyers! Others say that this is Grisham's warning to the legal profession...sounds plausible to me. The characters were interesting and well developed. The legal, technical details seemed believable. I enjoyed the book and will forever wonder about the side effects of the prescriptions I am taking.
    • 5/5
      The King of Torts, read by Dennis Boutsikaris, is incredible fun. I read this after reading "Sycamore row", a much deeper and multi-layered novel, and despite the very different, almost light-hearted tone, and the much quicker pace (maybe because of the abridged version), this is another fantastic read. Yes there is not much character development, but I think that was a choice. The plot moves very fast, it has a great rhythm, and you learn about the world of class action torts in the process.
      While Sycamore is more about various types of lawyers, but at its core it focuses on the good that a great lawyer can do, King of Torts focuses on the bad that a greedy lawyer can do. Oh, so bad. To society, to innocent people, and to other lawyers. And the great protagonist, as always with Grisham, is money: Sycamore is about money and its complex influence on many lives, Torts is about money and the destructive power of greed. Read it, it's a great book.
    • 4/5
      Once again, John Grisham makes the normally dry/tedious genre of legal fiction into an inventive and thrilling read. I was surprised by the amount of insight given to the profession of a tort lawyer. This one will probably divide readers, the whole conspiracy can be kind of unbelievable, but I was completely entertained.
    • 4/5
      John Grisham offers another legal thriller in "The King of Torts." Like several of his previous efforts, this one features a young lawyer thrust into a legal scene beyond his years and experience. Unlike previous books, the setting for this one is the big money, high-stakes arena of large class-action suits, set in the nation's capital.Overworked and underpaid DC public defender Clay Carter finds himself assigned to defend an alleged murderer who is almost assuredly guilty. In the course of investigating the background of his new client, however, Carter asks questions that a high-powered, and unnamed, pharmaceutical company hopes to bury.In this intrigue, Carter is given the means and the information to arrange a small class-action settlement, worth millions of dollars, provided he opens his own firm, specializing in such lawsuits. This he does with aplomb, spending lavishly to present himself as such a lawyer, including hiring dozens of lawyers to investigate and pursue new cases. In short order, Carter finds himself fabulously wealthy and in way over his head.Like Grisham's best work, the legal components are smart and gripping, if a tad far-fetched. Unfortunately, there is also a subplot of romantic entanglements with two women that strains credulity and feels forced. It's not good when certain relationships between Carter and his close associates seem warmer and more loving in a few sentences spread throughout the novel then the purported romances which stretch for pages.That criticism aside, the novel clearly falls under the category of "good Grisham": tightly paced, exciting, surprising at points, with an adequate conclusion.
    • 4/5
      Grisham completes another thrilling legal work of non-fiction with his 2003 novel, The King of Torts. Clay Carter is a defense lawyer who works for the Office of Public Defender (OPD), in Washington D.C. While his dream has always been to work for a major law firm, he is restricted to serving as criminals who cannot afford their own lawyers. He gets stuck with a seemingly routine murder trial of a black teen. However, Clay gets a mysterious phone call from a Max Pace who claims that he can easily make Clay millions of dollars. It turns out that the murderer was under the influence of a pharmaceutical drug that has been causing violent outbursts around the country. Pace claims that his company will pay Clay $10 million if he can get all the victims to settle at $5 million a piece. After this has successfully been completed, Pace gives Clay another assignment; a case worth millions of dollars based on evidence, that unknown to Clay, was stolen. This novel gives clever and creative insight to a relatively unknown branch of law: mass tort cases. Grisham cleverly weaves an intricate web of fact and fiction, that captures the readers attention and refuses to let go. Michael
    • 3/5
      The plot is rather predictable and the characters not very carefully developed. The book is worth reading however for its description of the class action tort process. I thought about it again today when a settlement was announced for the 10,000 9/11 cleanup workers possibly affected by the toxic dust and debris they came into contact with or breathed.
    • 5/5
      I found myself fully involved in the book. Grisham's development of the characters keeps you emotional involved. I found myself getting really mad, at the greed of Clay Carter. But also sympathetic, to how he got swept up in the emotions of the money and power it brought.
    • 4/5
      Not a thriller. But very interesting.
    • 3/5
      Nobody told me this would happen! I guess its a sign of getting older, but the younger me would never have been able to enjoy mindless fluff like this. Devoid of any form of meaningful character development, this is just a well written, incredibly shallow page turner with a story that a small child could follow.
    • 4/5
      Grisham on the Class Tort system, which is fairly unique to american legal practise. One of his favourite topics and picked up again here. In some respects this is almost a reworking of Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge into modern america. The language is simpliefied but the plot bares many resemblances. Clay Carter II is a Public Defender, ie one of the lowest of the US lawyers ranks, helping those on government wages who can't afford anybody else at all. One day he is assigned to an untypical streets murder, a guy in rehab just shoots a stranger for no reason at all, not even a streets reason. Suspicious Clay investigates a little, but before he can get very far he is contacted by a mysterious source claiming insider information. THis source promises vast payments if everythign is kept quiet. And so Clay's meteoric rise to fortunes and fame begins. Case follows case and Clay can't but help make money even when he's spending fortunes on his law firm and women. Until, of course, things start going wrong.This isn't Grisham at his best, because there isn't actually any courtroom scenes at all. However the prose rolls along at pace, and Clay is quite a rounded character struggling to reconsile his sudden fortune with his past life, and of course then there is the women he loves and the women he's with.Fun adn entertaining, but ultimately trite.
    • 4/5
      well-written. this guy is good at plot, very good.
    • 4/5
      This is the first Grisham book I've read. I just never envisioned myself as reading Grisham, however, when I picked up a dozen Grisham books cheap at a thrift store, I thought I might as well give one a try. This one was pulled at random from the pile so I'm not sure if I picked a good one to start with or not, but overall I was pleasantly surprised. It held my interest long enough to finish and it wasn't much of a chore to get through. Not really my style of book, but I'll be back to try more Grisham in the future.On to the story. This was a novel that got me emotionally involved unlike many.....and I'm not really sure why. I was rooting for the main character, yet hated him as well. It fascinated me to see how the class action lawyers functioned (if it really functions like this) and yet how dirty the whole process was. Grisham really spun a tale that brought to light the seedy side of law and the greed that sudden masses of money can bring. For the most part this was well plotted, yet a few threads were left hanging and the novel just seemed to wrap up too quickly and cleanly.Not too bad thought and an enjoyable read, so I'll try some Grisham again in the future.
    • 5/5
      Greed kills. Another first-rate Grisham, satisfying from beginning to end.
    • 4/5
      A solid John Grisham book. I made the mistake of reading this one and "The Street Lawyer" back-to-back, and because Grisham's books are all based on lawyer stories, I get them both confused!The story is good. The main character is not very sympathetic. I never rooted for him and was a little disappointed about the end. But overall, an enjoyable read.
    • 4/5
      7. This may be John Grisham's worst book, which means it's pretty good. It's about class action lawsuits and selling your soul for money. Torts is about suing someone in a civil court, such as suing a drug company. I think Grisham decided to experiment with his writing style a little bit in this book and lost, as it's not written as well as some of his others. However the story is great and it's fascinating to see how lawyers work and think.
    • 5/5
      Another good one from Grisham.
    • 4/5
      Another tale, told in true Grisham style.This is a story about a lawyer who has a case for the ages dropped in his lap, and how he deals with it. Fame and fortune quickly overwhelm him, but can he hang in there with the big boys and keep his grasp on everything he ever dreamed of?
    • 4/5
      Historical tale of violence, adventure and undying romance...
    • 2/5
      Pretty boring but it gets better at the end.
    • 5/5
      I read this during a six week stay in Vancouver, when the Vioxx court case was being widely reported. It was very interesting to see that a number of US law firms were advertising on US TV, keenly trying to sign up people to participate in their class actions on Vioxx. The book describes in some detail this kind of class action law suit against drug companies, which earns the law firms large fees, but in which the participants rarely receive more than a few thousand dollars after law fees have been deducted. It really was a revelation to me and, like most Grisham books, has a strong sense of authenticity and accurate research. An interesting moral tale for our times, as well as being a good thriller.
    • 3/5
      Avg. legal thriller, not his best