Richer Than the King of Torts

Scores of books and millions of words have been written by and about the late Melvin Belli, attorney extraordinaire of San Francisco. He was the man Life Magazine crowned in 1954, "The King of Torts." This book is not like any other. In it he is stripped down to white billowing boxer shorts, wandering between connected hotel rooms in Chicago. He is reduced to human dimensions in a lonely scene with one other lawyer munching on leftover fried chicken from the refrigerator served by his butler, at a sprawling dining table in his dark, empty Pacific Heights mansion. Belli is raw, passionate, and funny. He is mean-spirited, ruthless and cruel. In this book, as seen through the eyes of a young associate, Will Maas, he is a real human being. And in being that, Belli becomes more captivating that in any other laudatory or scathing story ever written about him before. And the young lawyer who tells his story, is transformed in ways that soar far above the law.