Almost two years ago, when I read Paul M. Barrett’s fascinating best-seller, “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” I wondered what subject might next capture the attention of this Harvard-educated lawyer-turned-journalist. Barrett has now produced, “The Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who’d Stop at Nothing to Win,” a richly detailed and well-documented narrative of one of the most important environmental litigations in decades—one that brought international attention to the oil pollution of the Ecuadorian rain forest, which may have caused illness and death in the local population.
But the book’s central focus is a story of alleged corruption, bribery and unethical behavior by a vigorous, although at first well-motivated, young New York lawyer whose ethical compass malfunctioned along the way.
