GREAT READS

The Litigators

John Grisham.

I have read several books by John Grisham, and I think this is his best so far. It is equal parts courtroom drama and roller coaster entertainment.

David Zinc, Harvard Law School graduate and associate in a large Chicago law firm, decides one day to chuck it all. He walks out of the fancy downtown firm, gets seriously drunk, and ends up on the doorstep of Finley & Figg, a law firm far removed from the one he just left. Oscar Finley, senior partner, is 62 and wants two things in life: to divorce his wife and to retire. Wally Figg, junior partner, has suffered four wives and two DUI's in the past decade. David finds himself hired as Finley & Figg's new and only associate.

Thanks to Wally, the firm gets involved in litigation against a pharmaceutical company which manufactures a cholesterol-lowering drug that supposedly caused the death of hundreds of people. Finley & Figg plans to ride the coattails of larger law firms involved in the case, and rake in the big bucks. Of course, things do not go exactly according to plan, and that is where the fun begins. The story takes some unexpected twists and turns before it reaches a satisfying conclusion.

Recommended by Dianne Gay