Whistleblower stories, qui tam lawsuits and history of the False Claims Act

Giantkillers
The Team and the Law That Help Whistle-
Blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions
by Henry Scammell

"In Giantkillers the good guys just keep winning - and we, the taxpayers, win right along with them. Reading more like a thriller than a tome on the law, this book provides a valuable, and fascinating, public service."

- Cokie Roberts of ABC and NPR

"Scammell's book offers a compelling argument for the importance of tort claims in protecting consumers and the government."

- Robert Bryce, The Washington Post

"[An] entertaining, smoothly written account. . . . [Giantkillers] benefits from the author's attention to detail, including his follow-ups with the whistleblowers years after their victories. Recommended for all collections."

- Harry Charles, Library Journal

Henry Scammell's GIANTKILLERS: The Team and the Law That Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions (Grove Press; $14 Paper; March 15, 2005; ISBN: 0-8021-4188-9), is the gripping story of individuals, sometimes risking every aspect of their lives, who so boldly accuse crooked companies on charges of deception and thievery, and the law, fallen far too long into disuse, that helps them do it.

The False Claims Act, once a law of extreme importance when it was enacted during the rule of the robber barons, had fallen into a state of near-impotence until the 1980s, when public crusader John Philips breathed new life-and new supreme importance-into it. Emil Stache, a Vietnam vet severely wounded by shrapnel from a defective weapon, used the False Claims Act to call in the FBI when he later went to work for a company that shoddily produced arms and wanted to save someone else from his painful fate. Michael Lissack, a man who once enjoyed the fruits of his Wall Street labor, quickly realized that enough was enough with cooked books and widespread corruption, and did his part to change the industry that has been rocked by scandal after scandal in recent years.

Charged with suspense, inspiring heroics, and riveting courtroom drama, GIANTKILLERS offers a vivid insider's look into the world of whistle-blowers, their adversaries, and their allies, weighing the lure of corporate greed and reckless power against the high cost-and often breathtaking rewards-of personal integrity.

Henry Scammell has been a freelance writer for forty years, most of them in advertising, and he has directed a medical nonprofit, The Road Back Foundation, since 1993. GIANTKILLERS is his eleventh book.