Grisham’s Latest Smokes Out Deceit Of Tobacco Trial

'The Runaway Jury'

by John Grisham

Doubleday, $26.95

John Grisham, the Old Faithful author of legal thrillers, has cranked out his latest - and one of his best - just in time for summer. Grisham has amassed millions of fans, and sold millions of books, despite frequent criticism that his plots often are absurdly unrealistic.

With "The Runaway Jury," however, Grisham turns a sharp corner, providing his most credible plot and his most intriguing mystery to date. The novel is a gripping page-turner, exquisitely timed to coincide with rising public concern over smoking and tobacco.

Grisham sets the stage in a Mississippi Gulf Coast town where the widow of a lifelong smoker is suing a cigarette manufacturer for her husband's untimely death from lung cancer. Armed with a team of high-profile lawyers, each of whom has ponied up a million dollars to fund an all-out assault on the tobacco industry, she is fighting for that crucial first victory that presumably will open the floodgates to a torrent of lawsuits against industry giants.

The tobacco defendants are equally well-armed with slick lawyers, high-priced jury consultants, discreet private investigators and ample cash, all furiously employed to hold back an onslaught of litigation. As in real life, Big Tobacco has won every trial to date, and it has no intention of losing this one.

With such high stakes on both sides of the courtroom, both teams work endless hours preparing for their clash. Both develop detailed dossiers on the potential jurors, probing their backgrounds, investigating their lives, and concocting elaborate theories on jurors' likely attitudes toward smoking, tobacco and litigation. Consultants on both sides pull down millions in fees for opinions based on potential jurors' facial expressions, body language and posture.

Worse, each side attempts to influence, bribe, even extort jurors to vote one way or the other. The architect for Big Tobacco's defense is Rankin Fitch, who has "fixed" juries in prior cases when necessary and arrives for the trial with such preparations well in hand. Unfortunately, Fitch, his clients, and the anti-tobacco plaintiffs are all thrown off balance by the one juror - Nicholas Easter - who remains a mystery to all investigators and consultants.

Things are further complicated when a woman identifying herself as "Marlee" contacts Fitch and demonstrates inside knowledge of the jury - and a ruthless willingness to negotiate. As each of these opponents maneuvers for position, the jury seethes at the trial's stately pace, the judge struggles to keep the proceedings on track, and the stakes inexorably rise.

Jurors often report feeling like pawns during complex litigation, and Grisham captures this feeling of helplessness with remarkable precision. Grisham's jury, manipulated by the mysterious Easter, engages in minor acts of rebellion, causing the judge, courtroom staff and all the lawyers to chew their collective fingernails and reach for the antacid.

Unfortunately, "The Runaway Jury" features some of the potholes for which Grisham is famous. Most of the characters are shallow and undeveloped. For example, the attorneys - usually the stars of courtroom dramas - are little more than background shrubbery here; their conduct, motives and ethics all could have provided depth and color, but Grisham opts for the easy approach of drawing them as cynical, cliched cutouts. And Grisham's ultimate twist - not to be disclosed here - is a bit predictable, though it could easily have been more provocative and devilish.

Grisham and all of his books, moreover, could benefit immensely from an infusion of humor, a quality sorely lacking in this self-important potboiler.

But even with these nits, "The Runaway Jury" is far and away Grisham's most addictive courtroom thriller. He packs the book with distilled nuggets of testimony and arguments about tobacco-company liability for smoking-induced cancer deaths - an effort that could easily have sunk the book in a mire of detail and posturing. Instead, it adds a crucial texture of realism that immeasurably helps the novel.

Grisham's publisher has opened sales of "The Runaway Jury" with 2.8 million copies in print, and it is virtually assured of being a summertime blockbuster and airport-rack staple even before its eventual paperback release. Hollywood is sure to follow, with Tom Cruise and Demi Moore waiting to learn their parts.

And Big Tobacco, long accustomed to the threats of Congress, the courts and the Food and Drug Administration, might finally have met its match.

Comments are closed.