BOOKS: THE RUNAWAY PLOT LINE

JOHN GRISHAM'S LATEST THRILLER INVOLVES A HOTLY CONTESTED CIVIL SUIT AGAINST BIG TOBACCO. SOUND PLAUSIBLE? GUESS AGAIN

John Grisham's 1991 thriller, The Firm, offered an inside-the-ant-colony view of lawyers being loathsome, a redundant concept that made him rich and had readers roaring for more. His subsequent page turners wandered from this antijuridical obsession to a more casual sort of barrister bashing that occasionally had other things on its mind. In The Runaway Jury (Doubleday; 401 pages; $26.95), obsession is back.

Now let's see, who or what do we hate more than lawyers? That's right, jury duty. And big, fat, sleazy corporations with maggoty ad campaigns and overpaid ceos. And shameless, unjustifiable federal subsidies! And corporate legal departments, yes,...

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