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Review: The Litigators by John Grisham

Title: The Litigators
Author: John Grisham
Year Published: 20011

Genre: Adult fiction
Pages: 448
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Challenges:
Geography Connection (my Google Reading map): USA (Chicago)


FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money

Summary (from Amazon): The partners at Finley & Figg often refer to themselves as a "boutique law firm." Boutique as in chic, selective, and prosperous. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are none of these things. They are a two-bit operation of ambulance chasers who bicker like an old married couple. Until change comes their way--or, more accurately, stumbles in. After leaving a fast-track career and going on a serious bender, David Zinc is sober, unemployed, and desperate enough to take a job at Finley and Figg.

Now the firm is ready to tackle a case that could make the partners rich--without requiring them to actually practice much law. A class a ruin suit has been brought against Varrick labs, a pharmaceutical giant with annual sales of $25 billion, alleging that Kroyaxx, it's most popular drug, causes heart attacks. Wally smells money. All Finley and Figg has to do is find a handful if Kroyaxx users to join the suit. It almost seems too good to be true...and it is.


Review: I read this book on my vacation to England. I had about five books on my iPad and two books already in my suitcase, but there is just something about buying a trade paperback in an airport to get a trip off to a good start, so I couldn't resist.

What can I say about a John Grisham that we don't all know already? There's lawyers, intrigue,  feuding law firms, and there are physical attacks on individuals. There is also corruption, corporate greed and underdogs.

If you like Grisham's books, which I do if I read them with a year or so in between, then this is a book you will enjoy. I am always disgusted by the way the legal system works, particularly all the back room dealings, the outrageous hourly fees, and the way the regular schmo gets screwed. No matter who is right and who is wrong, somehow, even when the little guy "wins", the big law firms win. But this one has a great ending with the characters I liked ending up in a good place and the hope that the underdogs will sometimes get what they deserve.

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