7: The King of Torts

Library book sale find, April 2012. It was 75 cents. I overpaid.

This book was outrageously terrible. That is all.

Oh, you want more?

Well, if you enjoy reading one-star reviews you’ll probably see comments to the effect that it was a bait-and-switch. The first three chapters or so were heading in one direction and then whoosh into the terribleness that was the rest of the book.

Basically it turns into a treatise on (mass) tort law. First, if you can’t make torts interesting, you fail! I mean, torts! That’s all the weird, wacky stuff. So, JG: #tortlawfail. Specifically, this “story” is about mass torts, you know, the kind of cases you see advertised on late night TV: “Did you take XYZ Drug?! You could be eligible for compensation! Call ABC Law Firm NOW!”

Our hero starts out as a public defender, with a gf who’s going to dump him, because he’s poor. Then he meets a Mysterious Stranger who gives him a tip and he heads out on his own, taking half his co-workers with him, and sets up shop as, well, Call ABC Law Firm NOW! So they pull in all these “clients” (i.e. the people who call their 800 number) get them a crappy settlement, take their cut and whoosh insta-riches!

In the beginning, our intrepid hero scoffs at the other mass tort lawyers’ excesses — jets, yachts, women, you know, the usual, blargh — but, of course, (blink and you’ll miss the transition), he’s soon indulging in his own excesses, despite the fact that his whole deal is based on this MYSTERIOUS STRANGER who gave him this ethically questionable tip. HELLO.

He goes blithely along as if that’s never going to come back to haunt him (right) until you know, it does. Obvs. Like duh. And all comes crashing down and he’s poor again. His friends/co-workers are all ok, because they were smart and cashed out asap. But he did not. Because our intrepid hero, he does not know how to read the writing on the wall.

Oh my god this book is so dumb.

Do not read.

The End.