Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions

by Henry Scammell

Traces the 1986 passage and subsequent application of the False Claims Act, describing the unlikely team of advocates that worked to revitalize a public interest law that had been thwarted by lobbyists since its enactment during the Civil War, and recounting numerous whistle-blower suits that countered fraudulent corporate practices.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 2004

About the author

A self described slow starter who was raised in Massachusetts, Henry Scammell applied to Harvard College in 1951, and flunked out before completing his first term. He spent the next several years employed as a cook in the merchant marine; a ticket agent for Pan Am at Idlewild; a credit investigator for Household Finance; and traveling the world.

Returning to Harvard as a freshman in 1958, he graduated two years later with a bachelor's degree magna cum laude and the Bell Prize for contributing to the understanding of American literature. He later received a diploma from the International Marketing Institute at Harvard Business School. He spent five years with the consulting firm A.D. Little, then freelanced as a business writer for several years before starting Scammell Associates, a high-tech advertising agency in Boston.

In 1982 he became a full-time writer and moved to East Orleans where he indulged his love of clamming, fishing and berry picking. Scammell served on the steering committee of the Arthritis Institute of the National Hospital and was co- founder of "The Road Back" Foundation.

His 12 books, often collaborations, were published in several languages. He also wrote more than 500 magazine and newspaper articles.