Book : The Litigators A Novel - Grisham, John

-Titulo Original : The Litigators A Novel

-Fabricante :

Anchor

-Descripcion Original:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * After leaving a fast-track legal career and going on a serious bender, David Zinc is sober, unemployed, and desperate enough to take a job at Finley & Figg, a self-described “boutique law firm” that is anything but. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are in fact just two ambulance chasers who bicker like an old married couple. But now the firm is ready to tackle a case that could make the partners rich-without requiring them to actually practice much law. A class action suit has been brought against Varrick Labs, a pharmaceutical giant with annual sales of $25 billion, alleging that Krayoxx, its most popular drug, causes heart attacks. Wally smells money. All Finley & Figg has to do is find a handful of Krayoxx users to join the suit. It almost seems too good to be true ... and it is. Review “John Grisham is about as good a storyteller as we’ve got.”-The New York Times Book Review “Grisham holds up that same mirror to our age as Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities.”-The Boston Globe “A mighty narrative talent.”-Chicago Sun-Times About the Author John Grisham is the author of twenty-four novels, including, most recently, Calico Joe; one work of nonfiction; a collection of stories; and a series for young readers. The recipient of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, he is also the chairman of the board of directors of the Mississippi Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 The law rm of Finley & Figg referred to itself as a “boutique rm.” This misnomer was inserted as often as possible into routine conver­sations, and it even appeared in print in some of the various schemes hatched by the partners to solicit business. When used properly, it implied that Finley & Figg was something above your average two-bit operation. Boutique, as in small, gifted, and expert in one specialized area. Boutique, as in pretty cool and chic, right down to the French-­ness of the word itself. Boutique, as in thoroughly happy to be small, selective, and prosperous. Except for its size, it was none of these things. Finley & Figg’s scam was hustling injury cases, a daily grind that required little skill or creativity and would never be considered cool or sexy. Pro ts were as elusive as status. The rm was small because it couldn’t afford to grow. It was selective only because no one wanted to work there, including the two men who owned it. Even its location suggested a monotonous life out in the bush leagues. With a Vietnamese massage parlor to its left and a lawn mower repair shop to its right, it was clear at a casual glance that Finley & Figg was not prospering. There was another boutique rm directly across the street-hated rivals-and more lawyers around the corner. In fact, the neighborhood was teeming with lawyers, some working alone, others in small rms, others still in versions of their own little boutiques. F&F’s address was on Preston Avenue, a busy street lled with old bungalows now converted and used for all manner of commercial activity. There was retail (liquor, cleaners, massages) and professional (legal, dental, lawn mower repair) and culinary (enchiladas, baklava, and pizza to go). Oscar Finley had won the building in a lawsuit twenty years earlier. What the address lacked in prestige it sort of made up for in location. Two doors away was the intersection of Preston, Beech, and Thirty- eighth, a chaotic convergence of asphalt and traf c that guaranteed at least one good car wreck a week, and often more. F&F’s annual overhead was covered by collisions that happened less than one hundred yards away. Other law rms, boutique and otherwise, were often prowling the area in hopes of nding an available, cheap bunga­low from which their hungry lawyers could hear the actual squeal of tires and crunching of meta