The Paperbackers

The main hero of John Grishams latest,The Litigators Hachette,Rs 350,is an all-too-familiar stereotype. At 31,David Zinc is a burnt-out Harvard law graduate who works 80-hour weeks at a downtown Chicago law firm. His life seems on a course of toil and monotony until one day,while riding the elevator to the 93rd floor of his office hellip;

The main hero of John Grishams latest,The Litigators Hachette,Rs 350,is an all-too-familiar stereotype. At 31,David Zinc is a burnt-out Harvard law graduate who works 80-hour weeks at a downtown Chicago law firm. His life seems on a course of toil and monotony until one day,while riding the elevator to the 93rd floor of his office building,he has a panic attack and runs away. Several hours later,he lands up in a gutter outside the offices of a law firm called Finley and Figg.

The partners at this establishment,just two of them as it turns out,call themselves a boutique law firm. The term is used to imply that they are cool and chic,prosperous enough to be selective,but in reality they are none of these things. Oscar Finley and Wally Figg are two washed-out veterans who specialise in hustling injury cases,the kind of lawyers whose ears perk up when they hear the screeching of tyres and ambulance sirens. Zinc stumbles into their office and offers to be their only associate.

Famp;F then decide to take on a really big case that could turn their fortunes around. They jump in to a civil action suit against a pharmaceutical giant called Varrick labs,the makers of a popular drug called Krayoxx,a cholesterol reducer for the chronically overweight. Several patients whove taken the drug have suffered heart attacks,and the case seems to be heading for an early settlement,which suits Famp;F perfectly. But before they know it,the three of them are arguing before a federal court,where none of them has ever been,in one of the biggest lawsuits the country has ever seen. It may lack in suspense at times but the book more than makes up for it with the characters of Wally and Oscar who,more than Zinc,are the real little guys stuck in a big war where theres no winning.

The action remains in the courtroom with Michael Connellys The Fifth Witness Hachette,Rs 350. A single mother,fighting to keep her house,and accused of hammering a mortgage banker to death,makes for a good story. When crime fiction expert Connelly writes it,he makes it a 500-plus page-turner. Characters from Connellys 20-odd novels often overlap and reappear in different forms. In The Fifth Witness,we find Michael Mickey Haller in the lead role. He recently made it to celluloid when the Lincoln Lawyer,starring Matthew McConaughey,hit cinemas early this year. This criminal defence lawyer still favours working from the backseat of his Lincoln car the reason behind the name.

For financial reasons,Haller decides to take up civil cases. His first foreclosure client is Lisa Trammel,possibly bipolar,prone to noisy tantrums and on the verge of losing her house. When she is accused of bludgeoning a bank CEO,Haller must defend her against the district attorney.

The book deals with Haller gathering evidence,building a case and representing his client. It drags in the middle,but with the court case,the action picks up. Might Haller be working,unknowingly,to let the guilty get off the hook? That final question makes this book a worthwhile read.