The King of Torts.

• Position: Book Review

By John Grisham. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Pp. 372. $27.95.

With the Supreme Court's recent rulings strongly disfavoring large punitive damage awards and a tort-lawyer-turned-senator currently running for President of the United States, John Grisham's foray into the ethically murky world of mass tort litigation is particularly well-timed. His thirteenth legal thriller recounts the spectacular rise and fall of Clay Carter, a young Washington lawyer. Overwhelmed and underappreciated at his job in the public defender's office, Carter accepts an opportunity to help Philo, a mammoth pharmaceutical company, obscure its role in a string of D.C. murders. Paid millions for his services, Carter uses his windfall to start a law firm specializing in mass tort claims against Philo's rivals. Using insider information, he quickly becomes the hottest mass tort lawyer in the nation. Ironically, it is the mass tort system that proves to be his undoing, when numerous disgruntled clients sue Carter for malpractice.

Grisham's implied thesis is oppressing in its clarity: The justice system has gone horribly awry, with...