The King of Torts

The King of Torts is the 10th book I've read by John Grisham. I suppose that makes him one of "my" authors although he has his share of let downs. Ever since I read The Firm years ago, I've looked for that magic once more but so far they've always seemed to fall a tad short.

I'm still not exactly what to make of this one. It is one of the better ones of Mr. Grisham's works that I've read, despite the nit picking that I'm about to do. It's a page turner for sure and I kept reading way past my bed time. That has to be a good sign right? Mr. Grisham does have a way of writing page turners; his language is for the common man, his chapters are fairly short so it's easy to think, "just one more chapter." * * SPOILER ALERT ** Sorry about this spoiler but its difficult to discuss this work without it. This novel could easily be classified as a tragedy in that we watch young attorney Clay Carter rise from a humble life in the Public Defender’s Office in Washington DC to become the newest "King of Torts", suing huge drug companies and others on behalf of wronged victims...only to have his empire crash and burn around him at the end. * * END SPOILER * *

As I said, it's a page turner but I do have some issues with the novel. The characters (particularly the protagonist) didn't always respond and behave the way I expected based on the first third of the book. In other words, I had come to know him pretty well through the various scenes and see how he reacts to events. But occasionally he does things completely out of character, yanking me right out of the narrative. Coupled with that, a couple of times I felt like the author was not treating me, the reader, with respect. I'm not a lawyer but in the course of the novel, we get a good dose of what tort litigation is all about and how it works, at least for a layman's perspective. But when a technique served well in the first part of the book, and the protagonist was well satisfied with the results, he tried it again and for no apparent reason it didn't fly the next time. It's as if the author ignored the investment the readers would make with the characters in order to make sure the plot worked as he wanted. As an example, there is one crucial court drama happening in the background during the final third of the book. * * SPOILER ALERT ** It's crucial to the plot and to what happens to our protagonist. We, the reader, along with the protagonist are led down the path of just how great it's going for our side, how amazingly the lawyer is skewering the opponent’s expert witnesses, how the jury is eating it up, and when the jury comes back with the verdict...we lose. That's it. No explanation. I know you can just never really tell with a jury but it seemed contrived by the author to disrespect the reader in order to get the ending he wanted.  * * END SPOILER * *

Yes, I am being hard on Mr. Grisham. But I'm sure his bestselling book sales will withstand my criticism just fine. And I expect a lot from him. The book was still fun to read and I'll keep reading him (I have at least 3 more on my shelves). But I'm still hoping for that great one.

More Twisted

I've broken one of my own rules today. Normally I read a short story after every full length book I read. Followers of this blog may remember that I used to never really like short stories. They always seemed...well... short. I like to get into my reading and not have it end 5-10 minutes after the story starts. But since I hadn't read too much short fiction I decided I wasn't being fair so I set up the 'one short story for every regular book' rule. And it's worked. I now have a deep appreciation for a well-tuned short story. I sometimes wonder if I should do the same thing for poetry because I really don't care for that either.

So what happened for me to break my own rule you ask? Well, next week is Spring Break week around here and so my family and I will be embarking on a rather long road trip to the NW where my son plans to visit potential college campuses. (If anybody has opinions, feel free to share them with me). Consequently, I didn't want to begin another book just a couple of days before the trip commences. And since I had only two short stories left in the More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II by Jeffrey Deaver I decided to wrap up that volume. So there you have it, a one time only stretching of the rules.

The last two stories in the collection were good ones. "Ninety-eight Point Six" was a more typical twisted story. I knew right from the beginning who the twist would revolve around (the one that seemed the most innocent). However, the how of it was a nice surprise. The final entry in the collection, "A Nice Place to Visit" was a bit of a departure from the other stories. It was much darker and more brutal than the other stories. Perhaps that is why this was selected for the final piece of the book. The twists kept coming in this one, almost too many because it became a bit difficult to follow. I did enjoy it though and was very happy with the conclusion.

So overall the second half of the book really saved this collection. At this point I would definitely read more of Mr Deaver's short stories. I'm not so sure about his longer works with his signature character Lincoln Rhymes. It's not because I don't think I would enjoy them but rather because I already have a lot of authors in the thriller genre with on-going series...I can't keep up as it is. But who knows? I've been known to impulse buy occasionally. Just yesterday, in fact, I was at the library to return my audio book and I purchased two more Louis L'Amour books from the library's fund-raising store. Can't ever have too many of those. The price was right but that means two more books on my to-be-read list. I am "down" to only 305 books now that I own but haven't read. Sigh...

I'm not yet sure which collection of short stories I will pick up next. I have a classic Stephen King that I'm considering or I may choose a collection of Aboriginal legends and myths that I picked up in Australia years ago. Also there is a similar collection of Native American legends I could choose...or...well, we'll see. And of course I get to pick what to take with me on the trip that starts Friday. The only one I know for sure will be Wilbur Smith's The Seventh Scroll, a sequel to River God that I raved about at the beginning of the year. Picking them out is half the fun!

See you when I return from the trip and start blogging about all I've read.

In the Company of Liars

Last night I finished David Ellis' novel In the Company of Liars. This book is very hard to describe, much less evaluate. In essence, it is a legal thriller involving murder, terrorists, government intrigue, FBI operations, and courtroom drama. But Mr Ellis decided to tell the tale in a unique manner: backwards. He begins the book at the end of the story and every scene in the entire novel takes place one or two days before what you just read. Now, I am normally not a person who goes in for gimmics. Too often authors like to prove how smart they are by fooling the reader with a gimmic of some kind. However, I had high hopes for this one (I knew about the backwards thing before I ever began to read) because of the author's first published novel, Line of Vision, which is one of the finest legal thrillers I've ever read.

I really struggled through the first third of this book. Most stories build up the plot and develop the characters in a logical progression, allowing the reader to absorb each new element one at a time. But here, since we are starting at the end, we have to see how all of the characters end up. We read about a suicide by a character but have no idea at the time who she is and why we should care. It's confusing to say the least. And to add to the confusion, the author frequently uses flashbacks of what the character is thinking...thoughts from their past...which we will read about in upcoming chapters...wow.

But then, suprisingly, it started to jell. But the time I was half way through the book, I knew who the main players were and what their motivations were. Now I wanted to know how events got to be the way they were. I'm sure that's how the author was approaching the whole book. The ending (beginning?) was quite good and went a long way in overcoming my initial objections to the "gimmic." I will admit to going back and re-reading the first 20-30 pages to see those events from the different perspective of knowing the whole story. That provided good closure for me. I would definitely classify this work as "smart" fiction, as the writing itself is well done, and obviously every aspect of the plot is well engineered. Overall, I am both happy to have read it and glad that it is behind me.

I also completed another short story from the More Twisted collection by Jeffrey Deaver. This one was called "The Poker Lesson" and was a good one, if not quite living up to the rare air of the previous two entrys. I knew there would be a twist, of course, and correctly assumed it would revolve around just who was teaching a lesson to whom. Only two more to go in this collection...

Next up: a return to fantasy with number 3 of Naomi Novick's Temeraire series: Black Powder War.