A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Civil Action
Book Review: What really went on here?
Summary: 5 Stars
A local man living in the Woburn area at the time Harr was writing this book began doind research at the Woburn library. Not long after,plainclothes often sinister looking men began appearing and looking over his shoulder at his microfilm research offering no explanation. Later a bizarre series of events unfolded in the man's life eventually leading to a series of internet postings in a desperate plea for help. These postings appeared to trigger an investigation into the man.
Why would basic research using publicly available resources trigger an investigation into a library patron?
Book Review: Way drawn out and just doesn't flow..
Summary: 1 Stars
I'm no literary critic, but this book just didn't do it for me. I'm somewhat amazed by all the acclaim it's received, but in no way did I consider it a thriller. The story is good, but the characters just never came to life and the facts and descriptions were just way bogging and boring-- and I can't help think it could have been much more readable despite the complicated facts.
Oh well. I breezed through Pelican Brief in a couple days. This one took me about 4 days... and I had to force myself to read it at times.
Book Review: More to all this?
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a man who wrote a book manuscript later rewritten as a movie script with actual names concealed about one year prior to this book about a handicapped,neglected and abused orphan living in Woburn in the same neighborhoods of the earliest childhood victims. The work was written with no knowledge of Harr or of this case. the movie script was forwarded to Hollywood. At the time the man had a "friend" living next town over and as far as the man knew neither the man forwarding the script knew the "friend" or vice-versa.
After Harr's book came out, the man came under heavy attack and the man was confused as to why. One day he talked with "friend" about his concerns,Harr's book and his own script and "friend" blurted out "Well, i'm not going to jail......" and changed the subject never offering an explanation.
Has a child who survived this been monitored all his life by individuals who feel threatened by the Woburn case?
Book Review: A Legal Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is the best I have read in a long while. Big major companies think they can do whatever they want, even cost people there lives by dumping harmful solvents such as TCE which causes leukemia and other disorders. Childrens lives are taken because of the actions of these corporations. The dumping of these harmful solvents results in the towns wells to get polluted, through groundwater (water underground). The famalies of these children press charges against the organizations not for money but for redemption and so that they know they can't do whatever they want and they will have to pay the price. You learn so many things in this book from all the facts in it, it totally blows you away. Once you pick it up, you wont be able to put it down until the last page. Book Review: Untold story
Summary: 4 Stars
In the 1960s a boy named "Ben" (pseudonym)lived in Woburn in all the areas affected by the water problem. His mother was a friend of Michael Gatta, who had unsuccessfully brought a lawsuit against the city in an effort to determine the cause of the water problems in the 1960s. Ben was treated at all the hospitals in the area the kids mentioned here were treated in and even had a Patten bottom brace and "aseptic necrosis of the femoral head" in his medical history,also mentioned in this book. Ben was admitted to a hospital <1 year old,given a procedure involving bone marrow biopsy in the hip,sequestered without visitors in a hospital in New York in which no definitive medical diagnosis was entered into the medical record and released after >2 yrs consecutive hospital stay back to Woburn.While in Woburn,Ben was repeatedly brought into the Woburn District Court for proceedings of some sort in the late 1960s-1970.Twenty-five years later,access to those court records were denied without so much as a hearing before Judge Cullen.In the early 1980s, another man appeared in Woburn bearing the same name as Ben and who began using Ben's address as a cover for his own activities,such as going AWOL from the Army.
When this book came out,Ben worked for Grace Corp. as a safety and environmental professional and was suddenly terminated without reason. Individuals who had befriended Ben suddenly began acting hostile and guarded and later ties to individuals linked to Omnitech International and these "friends" became apparent, of which Grace was a client. Ben's medical records,including those hospitals the children and families of Woburn were treated at,began disappearing.Ben began going to the Woburn library to research his own unknown family history and quickly came under scrutiny of plainclothes men who stood over his shoulder at the microfilm machine of unindexed Woburn Daily Times newspapers of the 1960s. Later men in suits began following Ben and taking notes in public places such as the local pub as Ben discussed Woburn,his own unknown history and the bizarre occurrences following Harr's book.