Customer Reviews

Undue Influence: The Epic Battle for the Johnson & Johnson Fortune

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Margolick quickly sucks you into the story and uses such detail that you can picture the people, places, and events. The story reads like a true soap opera with events so absurd you have to remind yourself that the book is non-fiction. I highly reccommend this book to anyone wants to be shocked at human behavior and what people will do for money.

This book will wholly satisfy lawyers (& everyone else) interested in a well-informed, insightful and fascinating inside look at the biggest will contest in US history. Its cinematic scope and dramatically drawn characters make it an addictive page-turner you will have difficulty putting down. While the story itself is at times a hilarious soap opera, it is always superbly written and thus a joy to read. I can't recommend it enough!

Brillian research and fine writing. I wouldnt know where to begin, this is a book filled with a wealth of details about an enormous and enormously rich family. In Mr. Margolick's skilled hands the reader learns the intimate and honestly ludicrous details of how people live with no brakes on their behavior and it aint pretty!

Extremely readable.

I couldn't get past the "prelude" of this 600-page "epic," and the several pages I skimmed. The exaggerated negative descriptions of characters, their thoughts, and motives was just too much for me.

Right from the beginning, it was apparent the author had some biases for and against certain characters. In fact, my impression was the author didn't really like any of them. As a result, I found his description of characters and their actions to be sensationalistic and unbelievable - and unecessarily negative.

Perhaps if the author had told the story straight, like "A Civil Action", and let me form my own conclusions about who the good guys and bad guys were, I might have gotten a little closer to page 612 (The End).

This book is recommended reading for both lawyers and non-lawyers, but in particular for the former.

A bit wordy, but what do you expect from lawyers?

Disclaimer: have not read this book yet, but actually a legal hornbook I'm reading recommends it!