The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground
for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long
and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real
firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged
with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the
many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.

As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a
conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in
the middle of a complex case against one of the largest
pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of
enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that
would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s
newest king of torts...

Reprinted with permission by Dell, a division of Random House,
Inc. All rights reserved.