Rating: 
Summary: 4 1/2 Stars...Maybe He Hasn't Lost It!
Review: Should I risk another legal thriller by the dethroned king? That was my question as I bought "The King of Torts." Reviews of this book range from one extreme to the other, and, after laboring through "The Summons" (thin plot) and "The Brethren" (no protagonist), I feared this latest would be a disappointment too.What a pleasant surprise. Grisham opens with a random killing, drags in an unwilling public defendant, then mixes it up with a global corporate coverup and millions of dollars at stake...I was hooked. Clay Carter is our sympathetic hero, a man wrestling for recognition and love. He rises meteorically to the status of multi-millionaire when he uses insider information to file a class-action lawsuit against a pharmaceutical giant. Despite the sudden riches, he despises the greed in the mass tort law industry, and he also bemoans the loss of his girlfriend. Soon, however, the temptations drag him down into the very quagmire he despises, and Clay finds himself to the be one of the villains he swore never to be. "The King of Torts" takes on the form of a modern morality play, a bit preachy but effective. At times, it reads more like a nonfiction account...very believable, but clinical in its presentation of facts. Other times, Grisham reconnects with the passion and emotion of his earlier classics. Although he leaves a few plot threads hanging--whatever happens to Max Pace, for example?--he swings mightily and accurately in this latest novel. Maybe he hasn't lost the legal touch after all!
Rating: 
Summary: Only a Jack of Torts
Review: I keep hoping that Grisham will find that spark, that certain something that kept me riveted to his books. But perhaps he's just run out of ideas. His last few attempts (The Brethren, The Summons, A Painted House) have been nothing short of total disappoint. In this attempt, Grisham gives us Clay Cart, a discontented attorney in DC's Public Defender Office who's life has rutted into the dull routine we all dread. But enter Max Pace, a mysterious visitor with information for Clay that could make him millions. And Clay goes for it, learning quickly the greasy ways of class action lawsuits where the only winners are the attorneys whose only goals are to make millions, buy Lear jets, yachts, tropical island getaways, while avoiding actually going to court. Clay follows this script to a letter, including a model/bimbo girlfriend. I quickly became disgusted with Clay and Grisham's attempt to give his a conscious toward the end of the book rings extremely hollow, as Clay is more dispondent about everything falling apart, rather than the more important moral issues that a person with a soul would have demonstrated. Grisham left much undone at the end of the book, leaving me wondering if a sequel is in his mind...a sequel I can definitely wait for. If you don't have anything else to read, then a few days going through the King of Torts isn't a total waste of time. But if you're eagerly anticipating the Grisham that gave us The Partner, A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Client, Runaway Jury, The Testament, etc., I'm afraid you'll be as disappointed as I was.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Grisham - great read - real page turner
Review: The King Of Torts is somewhat different from John Grisham's standard lawyer books. Rather then tracing the struggles of a hopeless hero, this book follows a richly successful lawyer through a series of successes only to find out that success can be difficult to manage. John Grisham's best talent is for creating heros you really like and he has done so here. I would easily recommend this book to any one.
Rating: 
Summary: A page turner but not very good
Review: Over the years I have marveled at how John Grisham has been able to keep cranking out one page turner after another. At first he was the new, hot author of the legal thriller. Then he tended to become both preachy and predictable. Nonetheless, he kept cranking out very readable books. In the last few years he has ventured away from his Memphis city roots, and his familiar theme of hero on the run. Now he is back with King of Torts, and once again it is an immensely readable book, a book that can be finished in a very short time.
But, we are once again being preached to as has happened before in his novels The Runaway Jury and The Chamber. Now he has tried to bring his writing style to tort reform, a topic to which there are really no easy answers.
As a practicing attorney I find it completely unfathomable how Grisham's lead character can stumble upon a huge tort settlement, let his own client go to prison in the process, and then continue on his merry way. More than 350 pages are needed to tackle this topic, and Grisham tries to hard to preach of the evils of personal injury and tort attorneys, and forgets that in order for there to be such attorneys there has to be a bad product. Sure we have bad products in this book, but the true evil is not the product but rather the attorneys who are trying to quickly gobble up fees at the sake of their clients. He creates a character who in just a few short months turns his back on all his ideals and all he has believed in. Does this happen, sure! But nobody has risen and fallen in the legal profession as quickly as Clay Carter. A few years ago I stopped reading Grisham because he was too predictable and then he came back with some better efforts delving into different areas of the law such as The Testament and The Summons, plus his recent non-legal books. I had hoped for a better treatment of the topic than what I got in King of Torts. It is highly readable, it is a page turner, but in the end you do not have any connections with the characters and I am still trying to figure out his simplistic ending to the book ... I am sure his legion of fans will love this book, but for me it really lacked character development and was highly unbelievable.
Rating:
Summary: The King of Boring.
Review: Mr. Grisham should begin writing under a pen name. His latest are a far departure from his typical coutroom thrillers. The King of Torts is a simple exercise of debits and credits as the lead character gains and loses his fortunes.
Rating:
Summary: John Grisham's King of Torts
Review: Having read all of Grisham's books, and saying I am a fan, I will say that this is definitely not his best work, but also not his worst (The Summons comes close to that!) However, I will say that Grisham writes in such a way that you cannot put the book down until you are finished (I finished this one in one day.) In regards to this particular book, I would not call it a legal thriller. Clay is never in danger of losing his life, only his license. I must say that there are very few characters in this book that I liked, only some of the peripheral ones. Clay starts off as a likable character, but once greed gets ahold of him he becomes another slimy lawyer, one who doesn't care about anything or anyone except how much money he can make, or how many toys or people he can buy. He doesn't even redeem himself in the end, only runs off with a married woman and declares bankruptcy so that all the people that he legitimatly owes money to can't collect. One thing this book does do (and I'm not sure if it's intentional) is that it very clearly shows how (most) lawyers are quite adept at breaking (or bending) the law to fit their own morals, and how they really don't give a hoot about their clients, only about how much money they can squeeze from them. In this story this is best demonstrated by how Clay and his cronies handle the Dyloft and the Cement Company cases. Ultimately what matters to the lawyers is not how much money the plaintiffs' get, or whether it is sufficient to cover their damages, but how large the lawyers' fees turn out to be. What did I like about the book? It's well written, and gave me an idea how these class action lawsuits work. The characters, while not particularly likable, are interesting. And it gives you a peek into a lifestyle which includes private jets and vacation homes in the Caribbean. So would I recommend this book to a friend? Maybe if their expectations weren't too high.
Rating: 
Summary: A nice return
Review: I was worried that after The Brethren and The Summons we were starting to see a pattern of decline in Grisham's writing. Like most, this was not my first Grisham thriller and I remain a fan of his novels.
I was pleasantly surprised by the King of Torts. The protagonist, Clay Carter, defies the easy to embrace and formulaic characters we were starting to see too often. His complex motivations and behaviors make for a interesting read that challenges the reader to consider their own ethical dilemmas.
I'm not certain if it was by writing more in-depth character studies like A Painted House that caused this change but hopefully we can expect more of the same.
Rating: 
Summary: Like the King of Torts, Grisham should give the money back
Review: It has been some time since I've read a Grisham book, partly because they have consistently declined in writing style and plot. So I decided to try him again. My mistake. Like the books protaginist, Grisham ripped us off by making this a best seller based on his past success. Not based on this book with its poorly developed main characters. Each was a stereotype with no demension. The plot disappeared quickly and became predictable. This book is not worth reading on the beach. Skip it.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: I usually don't write online reviews, but after reading such a horrible disappointment, I felt it was my duty to try and dissuade readers from wasting their time! I usually enjoy Grisham thoroughly for his fast-paced, interesting storylines, and I was excited to get this new release so quickly from the library. However, after the first 30 pages (which were quite good, namely because I was interested to learn more about Tequila), the book became a diatribe on mass tort. Grisham used the entire book to explain the technicalities of this type of law, and in an attempt to entertain his readers, he threw in a weak, utterly predictable storyline. The only characters who were slightly likeable barely make a dent in the story, and the annoying ones get too much attention. I kept hoping something interesting would happen, that a slight twist would make all the mass tort babble worth it, but the book ends just as you think it would. I have never been so aggravated at myself for wasting my time and giving Grisham the benefit of the doubt! I will definitely be more hesistant the next time a book of his comes out.
Rating:
Summary: Would not recommend
Review: Not a very exciting book.
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