Customer Reviews

The Litigators

5 star:		(198)
4 star:		(98)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(44)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

Early on in Grisham's career, he wrote with fire. He went off against the ills of the legal and political systems, kicked greed between the legs, and did it all with some memorable, believable characters. His success was not surprising. Then, he stumbled. He lost the fire. I barely hung on through books like "The Brethren" and "The Broker." But last year's "The Confession" showed him kindling some new heat over a subject he is passionate about, and I applauded it, even if it was a bit stale at times.

"The Litigators" is the first Grisham book I've had fun reading in a long time. I get the feeling he had fun writing this one. We meet grouchy Oscar Finley and plucky, unethical Wally Figg, partners at Finley & Figg. These are some humorous, annoying, even likable guys scraping to make a living through any client and situation possible. They're propped up a the tough secretary. They're bottom feeders. Along comes David Zinc, who can no longer stomach the hundred-hour work weeks at a legal firm where 600 other lawyers are employed. He goes off the rails, decides to check out one fine morning, and ends up drunk hours later on the steps at the ignoble Finley & Figg. Despite his recent bender, he's actually a guy who loves his wife, albeit not always well, and still retains some ethical and legal standards, since he's not yet stepped foot into a court or heard the way things go down between a rascally attorney and a leering judge.

With Finley & Figg adding Zinc to their recipe, the mixture bubbles over. Figg stumbles into a potentially huge torts lawsuit against a pharmaceutical manufacturer (while scraping for clients at a funeral home, no less), and he starts signing up other clients (ones who are alive, thank goodness). In his enthusiasm, he drags along Zinc and senior partner Finley, eventually landing their tiny firm in court against a formidable armada of attorneys.

As I whipped through the pages, I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion--and for all the right reasons this time. Grisham gives us some great characters, three-dimensional, likable, understandable, despicable, and everything in between. This is the Grisham I remember, one who was passionate, even fiery, but who also loved people and never forgot they were the driving force in his stories. Something has shifted. That fire is back. And this is easily my favorite Grisham in years.

Without the Compelling economic and political sidelights of the excellent Chaos and Kingdom, The Litigators is by far one of the best from one of the greatest legal thriller writers of all time. In his latest installment, Grisham introduces a quarter-life crisis uptown lawyer who's found new energy in an ratty-tatty ambulance-chaser law firm in the wrong part of town. There are a lot of problems with this struggling firm, not the least of which is they don't have enough money to even purchase an "¿Accidentes?" billboard.

Their opportunity comes in the form of a class action lawsuit against a big Pharma company who's latest cholesterol drug is killing people (maybe). What ensues is a compelling struggle to uncover the truth in an balanced tale that addresses the pros and cons of corporate and legal America. Grisham brings the story full circle when the protagonist and his rag-tag bunch of litigators take the class action all the way to the supreme court and face off against a legal team led by the same company the protagonist left.

If you had given up on Grisham recently, this might be a good book to get back into his work. It's a unique take on the legal thriller and a well-crafted story. Highly recommended!

I have been a Grisham fan for a long time. Some of his books I loved and some not so much. The Litigators was one I loved. The characters come to life and are each an interesting study in human dynamics. With charaters that seem alive and with a gripping, entertaining story, what was not to like ?? I found the book in my mailbox on Monday, October 24th and finished it today the 25th. A book you cannot put down is a book worth reading.

I pre-order all Grisham's books - he is on my must read list. I was disappointed in The Litigators. Very slow starting - I kept turning pages waiting for that hook, that "I can't put this down" feeling. The book ultimately delivers some laughs and the courtroom scene we expect in a Grisham offering, but it failed to live up to his reputation. Average at best, and I expect more from John Grisham.

Street Law has its own rules; the attorneys "chase ambulances," process no-fault divorces and literally run after cases no higher-class law firm would ever consider. Street Law litigators are often sole practitioners; Grisham fashioned a two-guy office and then added a Harvard grad making it three semi-desperate counselors.

I enjoyed this book on many levels. I work in Chicago for Litigators, not the low-level "boutique" firm of Finley and Figg but a mid-sized prominent defense firm which gave me an advantage in terms of legalese and the procedures. I could not identify with Oscar Finn, the aging attorney, who felt he wasted the last 30 years with this crummy practice or Wally Figg, a drunk who is chasing the big pot of gold and will pull almost anything to sign up a client. However, I have met many David Zinc's, the burnt-out bright attorney who knows he cannot stand one more 100 hour week of entering billable hours for his cold-hearted large firm.

Grisham recaptured the heroes of his earlier books in David Zinc. We first meet David when he is enduring a full-fledged panic attack, as he is about to begin another day at the Rogan Rothberg 600 attorney firm. After losing all control, David spends the rest of his soul-searching day in a neighborhood bar and later he drunkenly washes up at the doorstep of Finn & Figg. David teams up with these low-level guys and begins to learn their ropes and seizes the moment. He is a good man with a beautiful, smart wife, Helen. He does not cut corners and uses his own money to help and investigate a horrific injury to a Burmese boy. In this case, Grisham aims his anger at American toy companies who have bought Chinese toy manufacturers that apparently manufacture lead poisoning rather than safe toys.

Suffice it to say, Grisham was able to neatly include the mistreatment of illegal immigrants, the hypocrisy of the drug companies (Varrick Drugs is the chief antagonist), the frauds who will try anything to cheat someone out of money, product liability law and the real victims. The main culprit is mass tort litigation where the victims remain victims while the plaintiff and defense lawyers reap the millions. Grisham slows David's progress but the reader knows that this Harvard grad is really smart and when he can understand the particular law, Federal court and how to litigate, we know he will be a star. Through it all, David is a good friend and a reputable attorney (despite Wally's influence). One of my favorite scenes takes place when David explains his new career to his father, a judge in Minnesota. Expecting the judge to be of no use or patience, his response is not volatile. Later, we learn his father taught David the moralities of the court decisions.

Grisham has crafted an entertaining book, once again. Some parts were totally unbelievable and he gave the reader almost every character imaginable: the slovenly ex-wife looking to score big in a lawsuit, the beautiful, sexy defense attorney (Nadine) for the drug company, sarcastic but loyal secretary (Rochelle) to Oscar and Wally, the bartender who has heard it all (Abner's), and of course, the insurance companies who will continue to profit win or lose. The reader prevails in this clever tale; it's a fun page-turner that really does not insult one's intelligence. Setting the story in Chicago, of course, adds to the lack of civility and no holes barred zingers. However, he had several errors regarding Chicago areas and neighborhoods. These would be quite obvious to a Chicagoan. He needed a native Chicago editor! 4.5 stars

Long time fans of John Grisham will love The Litigators, which is one of his best books in years.

You can read the plot elsewhere, but suffice to say unlike some of his recent efforts, this book not only keeps you interested right to the end, but provides a satisfactory ending that doesn't leave the reader feeling short-changed. Some recent Grisham books seem to spend a lot of time setting up the characters and the plot, and then end with a whimper. This breaks the trend.

I've got every one of Grisham's books and this one ranks in the top half-dozen. There was always the feeling of "just one more chapter before I put it down" which (let's be honest) can't always be said.

For those who've fallen out of love with Grisham, maybe give this one a try before you give up all together! Highly recommended.

I listened to the Audible.com version, thus my comments relate to both the plot (such that it was) and the reader.

Please let me rant: Until the big courtroom scene, I do not believe the words of this book were written by JG. I believe it was either a student's effort at mimicry or a formulaic software program where names and scenes were tossed and spit out as a story. The story was weak and no anticipation was built into it. When David first happens into Finley & Figg, there was so much complaint about his former boss, I expected the boss to be found dead and David accused. That would have been a much better story. This mess was like a big soup pot wherein alcoholism, sexism, ageism, fat-ism, and stupid-ism were all put together to create a reason to have a trial. The trial, as expected, was an exercise in futility, but it served the purpose of trotting out beautiful, intelligent women for big corporate (read: bad guys) to ogle and demean.

The saving grace, in the last 40 minutes of 11 hours was another fiasco. While it is all very sweet to hope for the kind of CEO we learn of at the end, it is unlikely and the results were too swift and also unlikely -- the corporation "caved" under so little pressure.

As for the reader: He often sounded like Christopher Walken. It was the wrong voice for this book. Not one of Grisham's previous recorded books ever sounded like this. I do not know if an author gets to prep the reader or even review the reading but this guy mispronounced words -- specifically Chicago words. He pronounced LaSalle Street as Lasall, and the town of Des Plaines as deplanes. While that's not a huge deal, it contributed to my dislike for the book. The fact that it was in Chicago was a little disconcerting, since I love the Mississippi novels so much, but as I live here, it's fun to listen for landmarks and references. Those that were accurately named (not renamed as fictional) were obviously gleaned from some reference book and had not the ring of any authenticity. That may all be the fault of the reader's lack of preparation, but it mattered in the listening.

Strange and inexplicable: There is a dog in the office who gets fed, but never taken OUT? There was no scene that I can recall that mentioned AC (Ambulance Chaser) getting out to do his business. A small thing, I know, but goes to making me think JG didn't touch this text.

When David is at the BIG TRIAL, he has reams of information about a variety of other products manufactured by the defendant. We heard nothing about David's research. Where did it come from? When did he do this? While he was walking his infant on the hourly shifts he shared with his wife? Come on!

The tying up of loose ends was fast and stupid. Finley and Figg were losers to massive degrees, but their savior, David comes in with a safety for all. When he walked in, he had money saved from his old job and he spread it around freely. Why? He didn't believe in those two yokels, not in the firm, not in the big case. We knew he was spontaneous and crazy when we met him, but this behavior is not sensible from within the context of the book. At the end, the savior comes through again, and the two hapless idiots get to skate on in their stupid lives. David is so "good" that his one dubious move, which could have caused him some bad press and bad luck, also evaporated.

The bar scenes at Abner's were the only times the book felt "real." They were so good that I thought I was reading a Lescroat/Dismas Hardy book.

Overall, I am shocked by the poor quality of the story, the writing and the reader. I am glad it was offered at below regular price, so I didn't use an Audible credit for it. Still, at $17, it was expensive.

If JG really wrote this, I must extrapolate the following:
1. He is subliminally poking fun at: poor people, fat people, drunks and "hot" women.

2. He may overtly poke big corporate greediness and unscrupulous manufacturers, but his real targets seem to be the poor and uneducated. It took David (corrosion-resistant) Zinc to swoop down on the law firm, the poor immigrants, and the big bad capitalists, and David was not even well versed on the law and its machinations.

3. I do not have the text to refer to but at one point toward the end the author refers to a drive for one of the lawyers as a small Asian woman of dubious ethnicity. While the word "dubious" is appropriately used, it has a negative connotation, as if the uncertainty of her ethnicity is dubious -- not that the specific ethnicity was dubious. Call it nitpicking, but there are several of these plays on words that make question author's true feelings about some people. He maligned the clients of Finley & Figg for taking the bait on Krayoxx making them seem stupid, obese-lazy and oh, stupid. They got their come-uppance in the Krayoxx trial. But the Burmese clients, with their gentle and self-effacing ways, well, they do better. They had the benevolent CEO.

4. It was a silly book. It had elements of Carl Hiaasen and elements of top-rate Grisham. It had some Jonathan Kellerman (but not enough) and it had some Dismas Hardy. David's capacity for saving the firm and its deserving clients had a dose of Jack Reacher (of the intellectual variety); that is, his efforts were superhuman, a tad ridiculous and somewhat unsupported by reality.

So, why did I take so much time writing this? Shrug.. I expected more and got less. I am complaining. I am complaining about what I perceive is a laziness a carelessness by well-loved authors. Maybe they are contracted to put out work on a timetable. This one felt like an obligation rather than an enjoyable undertaking by one of my favorite authors. I regret that I have to wait for the next one to come out. I will wait for the reviews to hit before I invest money or anticipation in acquiring it.

Thank you for reading.

I found the style choppy and the cadence that of a newspaper reporter - "He did this. Then he did that. Then this happened" and so on. However, I did like the story idea. The last chapters were the best. The plot was not plausible, but I suspended reality for the sake of the story.

He's trying harder at least, even if it is formulaic, its a formula that always worked with his readers in the past. I paid the high Kindle price for a new hardcover offering, and didn't mind all that much. The story had much more potential for plot development, but I bought it and read it just to see if this once so very interesting storyteller had revived his skills - and to some extent, he has.

I'm not sorry I bought it.

I throughly enjoyed this book. It was very hard to put down once I started reading it. John Grisham has once again created a winner. I am an avid fan of his and love to read his books.

This read was very disappointing. You know how some times you will watch a terrible movie to the end just to see if it gets better? That's how I was with this book. The dialog and character development were entertaining, but the book was without an engaging plot. The climax was a dud. An okay read for a lesser known author, that you get free. A terrible waste at the publisher's price! I want $12.00 of my $12.99 back.