The Summons. The King of Torts

2 knygos vienoje: The Summons ir The King of Torts. THE SUMMONS: Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep.

And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse.

With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study.

Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray.

And perhaps someone else. THE KING OF TORTS: In The King of Torts, John Grisham takes on the tort lawyers, attorneys who file large class action suits that brings massive payouts from corporations. A few of those dollars make it into the plaintiff's wallets, but huge amounts go to the lawyers who represent them. Clay Carter is a public defender close to burn out and disgruntled by his lack of a career. A mysterious man in black then comes to him with inside information on a drug that causes people to commit murder, and if Carter sets up his own law firm, he can win huge payouts with this information. This sets Carter on a furious path to wealth and the moniker "King of Torts" as the man in black continues to feed him inside information on different companies. In typical Grisham fashion, there in no gray area and there's a clear delineation between good and evil, lots of thrills, and a predictable ending. The King of Torts has gathered mixed reviews, probably due to each reviewers preference, or lack thereof, for Grisham's literary style.