The King of Torts began with what you'd expect of any cliché murder mystery: the story starts off with someone being murdered, and many questions need to be answered. Who did it? Why did they do it? Clay Carter, the protagonist, is a lawyer, working for the Office of the Public Defender in Washington D.C. He was in court, looking for a new case, when he first met Tequilla Watson, the man charged in the murder of a man known as “Pumpkin”. He start's researching his client, finding out he had some drug problems, trying to prepare his defense. Mr. Watson then confessed to killing but genuinely said he didn't know why he committed the crime. This is where The King of Torts starts to diverge from the cliché murder mystery: instead of working towards…show more content… Within the first 100 pages (in this book of almost 500 pages), Clay receives a call from a mysterious man, he say's his name is Max Pace. This man won't say where's he from, but forward an interesting proposition for Clay, one that would cause him to break his own personal ethical code, in exchange for instant riches. He becomes aware of the cause that led Mr. Watson to commit murder, and becomes intertwined in a conspiracy to cover this up. Clay Carter's character begins to transform. He started off as someone who wanted to do good, to defend those who need defending. Unfortunately he had let money corrupt his life. Max Pace had told him that he came to Clay Carter on behalf of a well known pharmaceutical company (but did not identify the name), this company had secretly supplied a drug which treated addiction, but “desire to murder” was found to be a very rare side effect of the drug; the drug had been pulled, but Max wanted Clay covertly “fix” any possible legal issues. Clay soon dropped Tequilla Watson, and started “representing” the family of Pumpkin, in a settlement with Max Pace's company for the wrongful death of Pumpkin. All the details had previously been arranged with Max. He was given a list of a few more family to “represent”, and settle any issues they might have had. He then received $15