Grisham's tort king hits paydirt

The King of TortsBy John GrishamCentury, 16.99Neil Rose

It has been a long time since John Grisham produced a really exciting thriller - The Runaway Jury back in 1996 is arguably the last one - but he has made an overdue return to form in this latest incursion into the world of unscrupulous lawyers.

Clay Carter is a dispirited public defender in Washington DC whose prospective in-laws are not impressed by his salary.

After he is stuck with the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he is approached with information that indicates a shocking conspiracy.

Through this, Clay suddenly finds himself in a position to launch a massive group action against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the US, and reach a settlement so large that it would change his life and crown him as the legal profession's newest 'king of torts'.

John Grisham has travelled down the mass tort road several times before, but this exposes the corruption of the system in the most naked fashion.

The lawyers who seek out defective drugs, mount massive advertising campaigns to bring in claimants, then settle for sums that bring them millions of dollars through contingency fees are not so much interested in their clients - with whom they have little or no contact - as in what they can buy with the proceeds.

Clay attends a conference for mass tort litigators where the practice sessions are virtually empty, but a presentation on the latest private plane (costing a mere $45 million) is packed.

Subtle this isn't.

Clay begins the book as a regular, decent guy who is appalled by what he sees.

But he is gradually corrupted by the money, in a way that is very reminiscent of Ray Atlee, the central character of Grisham's last book, The Summons.

Indeed, Patton French, the amoral lawyer from The Summons, is prominent again here.

So the themes are nothing new - and haven't been for some years in Grisham's work - but what sets this apart from his last half-dozen or so books is that it is simply very exciting to watch Clay ride the crest of the wave knowing that it cannot last.

And the fact that there are mass-tort lawyers out there who specialise in bringing negligence actions against other mass-tort lawyers adds a nice shark-like sense of circularity.

As ever, plot takes precedence over character, and this is especially frustrating as we get to know how Clay's mind works at first, but are then given no sense of what is going through it as he changes into a rapacious lawyer who can work out his cut of a huge settlement in seconds.

But by now you know what you are getting with a John Grisham novel, and The King of Torts is certainly a superior variety.