A Civil Action

In America, when somebody does you wrong, you take 'em to court. W. R. Grace and Beatrice Foods had been dumping a cancer-causing industrial solvent into the water table of Woburn, Massachusetts, for years; in 1981, the families of eight leukemia victims sued. However, A Civil Action demonstrates powerfully that--even with the families' hotshot lawyers and the evidence on their side--justice is elusive, particularly when it involves malfeasance by megacorporations. Much of the legal infighting can cause the eyes to glaze. But the story is saved by great characters: the flawed, flamboyant Jan Schlichtmann and his group of bulldogs for the prosecution; Jerome Facher, the enigmatic lawyer for Beatrice, who proves to be more than a match; John J. Riley, the duplicitous, porcine tannery owner; and a host of others. It's impossible not to feel the drama of this methodical book, impossible not to grieve for the parents who lost children, and impossible not to share Schlichtmann's desperation as he runs out of money. A Civil Action reads like one long advertisement for a few well-placed Molotov cocktails. (But that wouldn't make for a very long book, now would it?)

• The Administrative Threat (Encounter Intelligence)
• Essentials of Environmental Health (Essential Public Health)
• Gideon's Trumpet: How One Man, a Poor Prisoner, Took His Case to the Supreme Court-and Changed the Law of the United States
• Property: Cases, Problems and Skills Practice [Connected Casebook] (Aspen Casebook)
• Health Policy: Crisis and Reform
• Environmental Law and Policy (Concepts and Insights)
• Carper's Understanding the Law
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
• Cases and Materials on Criminal Law (American Casebook Series)