Conservatives might expect a large degree of slant from Curtis Wilkie -- given his professional background -- in his book, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ZEUS, but they won't find it, even though politically speaking, Wilkie and Dickie Scruggs are on the same side of the political aisle.
Instead, Wilkie lays out the facts in the story of Big Tobacco Oppressor Dickie Scruggs, aptly named "The King of Torts."
Scruggs made his fortune after graduating from The University of Mississippi Law School by successfully prosecuting in class action lawsuits in the 1980s involving asbestos claims from Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyards and related businesses. Scruggs then parlayed his riches even higher with Big Tobacco company lawsuits in the mid-1990s.
But in the small world that is Mississippi politics, one false move and the oppressor becomes the oppressed.
Wilkie carefully and thoroughly chronicles Scruggs' rise to power and fame in the first part of the book while explaining the Mississippi landscape of law and politics for outsiders. He then turns the reader on to Scruggs' next big class action effort, the Hurricane Katrina Victims' Class Action lawsuit against insurance companies including State Farm.
By this point in his career, Scruggs had that 'I can do anything' attitude and boldly orchestrated a plan to have an intermediary approach a judge in a case filed against Scruggs by a disgruntled former colleague. The intermediary offered the judge a bribe to make the case go away and Scruggs was eventually indicted on bribery charges after a contentious federal investigation with the outcome being Scruggs' guilty plea.
Wilkie masterfully crafts from legal documents and reports the wheeling-and-dealing of Scruggs and his associates, providing the reader with a deft reminder of the fact that misuse of power and the feeling of being above the law will almost always, in the words of my grandfather, "gitcha caught."
Wilkie, a professor of journalism in-residence at the University of Mississippi and a 40-year veteran of the news business could not have been a better person to craft this book. Wilkie was more than familiar with Scruggs and many of his cronies. The result is a fast-paced drama that reads so much better than a John Grisham novel, Wilkie should turn his attention to writing more books of this nature.
Yet Wilkie's book is far more than the story of Dickie Scruggs. It is a paradigm on new money and power and poor management of both and in the end, a masterfully told story of that age old Biblical one, good versus evil.
Anyone interested in the law as it relates to needling and prosecuting big business will not want to put down THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF ZEUS, a noteworthy piece of non-fiction.
This review was written by alumna L. Kim Kimbrough. Have you read a good book lately? We'd love to read your thoughts on it. To see your review published here, please send it to mfaeablog@gmail.com.
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