{"id":6130,"date":"2026-04-21T09:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6130"},"modified":"2026-04-21T09:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:10:17","slug":"close-encounters-with-torts-by-t-c-morrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=6130","title":{"rendered":"Close Encounters with Torts by T.C. Morrison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Witty dialog and broad satire make for some humorous courtroom drama.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Legal fiction often leans toward high stakes and moral seriousness. Courtrooms become places where reputations collapse, fortunes disappear, and the law itself carries the weight of consequence. Comedy appears less often in the genre, though the legal profession\u2014with its rituals, technicalities, and endless arguments about language\u2014has always been fertile ground for satire. T. C. Morrison\u2019s Close Encounters with Tort$<\/em> takes full advantage of that idea, turning the machinery of the law into the setting for an extended farce.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The novel follows Pap and Pup Peters, twin tort lawyers who run a plaintiffs\u2019 firm specializing in class actions. Their latest case centers on Mona Lott, a journalist arrested for revealing classified information about mysterious UFO sightings along the East Coast. What begins as a defense against an Espionage Act charge soon grows into something much larger, eventually involving pressure from the CIA to represent the United States in litigation connected to Russian drones and espionage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Peters firm is also pursuing a shareholder lawsuit against Disney over the absence of the song \u201cSome Day My Prince Will Come\u201d from a remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs<\/em>. Morrison\u2019s plot is intentionally excessive, moving comfortably between legal disputes, geopolitics, and corporate grievances.<\/p>\n

Where the book works best is in its dialogue. Morrison writes conversations that move quickly and often turn unexpectedly absurd, with characters focusing on the wrong details at exactly the wrong moment. Mona Lott in particular becomes a reliable source of comic friction. Even while facing the possibility of twenty years in prison under the Espionage Act, she cannot resist correcting the grammar of the lawyers trying to help her:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve never paid Pap or me a cent,\u201d said Pup. \u201cWe\u2019ve never billed you for any of the ridiculous cases you\u2019ve been involved in.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn which you\u2019ve been involved,\u201d corrected Mona. \u201cYou can\u2019t end a sentence with a preposition. You should know that, didn\u2019t you go to Harvard?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The joke continues later in the courtroom, when Mona interrupts the judge to make the same correction:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe sure seems to have a lot of legal difficulties that she needs to be extricated from.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom which she needs to be extricated. You can\u2019t end a sentence with a preposition.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Moments like these give the novel its rhythm. Morrison relies less on elaborate setups than on the way his characters talk to each other. Serious situations rarely stay serious for long. Someone inevitably interrupts to argue about wording, publicity, or legal strategy.<\/p>\n

The characters themselves are drawn in a similarly comic style. Pap and Pup are not deeply psychological figures, nor are they meant to be. They function as steady guides through increasingly ridiculous situations, reacting with a mixture of professionalism and opportunism. Mona, meanwhile, is written as an exaggerated personality whose confidence and pedantry regularly derail otherwise sensible conversations.<\/p>\n

The satire throughout the book is broad rather than sharply focused. Morrison pulls freely from contemporary politics, media culture, and corporate behavior, but the jokes tend to be direct rather than subtle. Early in the novel, Pap describes the firm\u2019s mission with blunt clarity: \u201cWe specialize in suing large companies who have deceived, cheated or otherwise mistreated their customers or shareholders. In other words, we sue bad dudes who have committed bad deeds.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The humor lies partly in its simplicity, though it also reflects the book\u2019s overall style.<\/p>\n

That same approach appears in some of the novel\u2019s more elaborate schemes. At one point the characters discuss a plan that would turn Mona into a national martyr, reasoning that \u201cThe whole nation will mourn Mona\u2019s demise\u2026 Mona will love it.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> The joke works because of how casually the idea is proposed.<\/p>\n

Readers looking for tightly structured satire may find the humor occasionally sprawling. Morrison seems less interested in aiming at a single target than in piling one ridiculous situation on top of another. The pleasure of the novel comes from watching those situations escalate and from the fast-moving exchanges that follow.<\/p>\n

Taken on those terms, Close Encounters with Tort$<\/em> delivers exactly what it promises: a comic legal world where grammar disputes interrupt espionage charges and lawsuits spiral in unexpected directions.<\/p>\n

The post Close Encounters with Torts by T.C. Morrison<\/a> appeared first on Independent Book Review<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Witty dialog and broad satire make for some humorous courtroom drama. Legal fiction often leans toward high stakes and moral seriousness. Courtrooms become places where reputations collapse, fortunes disappear, and the law itself carries the weight of consequence. Comedy appears less often in the genre, though the legal profession\u2014with its rituals, technicalities, and endless arguments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}