- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday (Feb 15 1992)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385421982
- ISBN-13: 978-0385421980
- Product Dimensions: 16.3 x 3.5 x 24.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 363 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #375,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
John Grisham's head was full of movies when he wrote The Pelican Brief, which is such a brisk page-turner you could use it to dry your hair. He had Julia Roberts in mind for the heroine, Darby Shaw, a brilliant Tulane law student who comes up with an ingenious theory to explain the baffling assassinations of two Supreme Court justices in one day. They were shot and strangled by ace international terrorist Khamel, who loves the film Three Days of the Condor, but government gumshoes don't get what connects the deaths. Silly government guys! They died so the conservative president, who just wants to be left alone to play golf, will appoint new, conservative justices who will help out a case involving an industrialist who is the enemy of pelicans and other living things. It's all spelled out for them in Darby's brief. She likes to do legal feats to impress her boyfriend, her boyish law prof Thomas (who, like Grisham, prefers to shave at most once a week, and is cool, smart, and antiauthoritarian). The prof likes to paint her toes red, in homage to Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. (Sarandon also starred in the film version of Grisham's The Client.)
But when Thomas gets splattered by a car bomb meant for Darby, she escapes the hospital and hooks up with a Washington Post reporter, Gray Grantham, who sleuths like the guys in All the President's Men.
Grisham wishes he hadn't written The Pelican Brief quite so quickly (his first novel, A Time to Kill, went through dozens of drafts), but Pelican's very breathlessness contributes to its dreamy, cinematic chase-o-rama atmosphere. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In this tale of the aftermath of the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices, Grisham delivers a suspenseful plot at a breakneck pace, although his characters are stereotypes. The hardcover was on the PW bestseller list 48 weeks and the mass market was No. 1 last week.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Pelican Briefs Suspension of the Unknown,
By trippfox (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Pelican Brief (Mass Market Paperback)
In The Pelican Brief by John Grisham, suspense is used to keep the reader's attention. Darby Shaw is an innocent student of law who comes up with a theory as to who committed murders, and she calls this the Pelican Brief. Unbenownced to her, she has uncovered the true murderers. When they get a hold of her brief, her world changes drastically. Grisham uses a tactic where he leads the reader in one direction and then suddenly the story goes a different direction. We come to realize that this type of device used by Grisham often makes us keep reading because we want to find out what is going to happen to the character in the next scene.At the beginning of the novel, Grisham lacks the use of suspension. This makes it hard for us to read when we have no real drastic change that quickly changes our point of view. As soon as Thomas Callahan dies from a car explosion we come to realize that Darby's life is at stake. When she is scared and is living in hotels where anyone can find her, we are left in suspense where we don't know what is going to happen to her. Later on in the novel, we follow Darby and Gray Grantham through the underground just waiting for them to be caught. In the end the device of suspense is what keeps the reader interested throughout the novel. It keeps us waiting to find out if the good or the evil of the world will win the battle. Any part of a novel without suspense, which we discover in the beginning, is not keeping our attention. Once our opinions keep changing we keep wanting to read more and more about how the character ends up. Suspension helps make us more open to new opinions and quick changes in our own world; although, Grisham uses this to make us more attentive to his story.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant and necessary inside info for the movie,
By stillalbertaone (British Columbia, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Pelican Brief (Mass Market Paperback)
THe movie was great, but having seen it repeatedly, and enjoying it every time, I was astounded at the extra information the book provided. Now I understand what was missing from an already outstanding story covered in the film. Thanks to John Grishams writing skills, drawing from his personal experiences and his astute grasp on current attitudes and reactions, this is indeed A WINNER..GLR
4.0 out of 5 stars
Corrupt Lawyers Act on Behalf of a Corrupt Client to Manipulate Corrupt Politicians and Be Chased by Investigative Reporters,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: The Pelican Brief (Mass Market Paperback)
If you are thinking about going to law school, this wouldn't be a bad novel to read to get a sense of what the profession is all about before you commit yourself to three expensive (and potentially boring) years of education. I don't recall a book that displays so many of the corrupt sides of legal practice and education in a single fictional tale. If that weren't enough, the book also delves deeply into the international assassination genre and creates a modern-day fictional version of investigating a government cover-up at the highest levels, a la Watergate.But a pure heart among all the jaded ones can make a difference . . . that's the morale of this story as beautiful, dedicated, and brilliant law student Darby Shaw speculates on what motive might tie the assassination of two Supreme Court justices back to a pending legal case. Improbably (the weakest part of the story), she sniffs out the potential that no one else does -- that this is an attempt to fix an appeal. The Pelican Brief as a title is a misnomer. Darby writes her thoughts (a crude essay, not a brief) about what might be going on and shares them with her professor lover who passes them along to a counsel for the FBI. Pretty soon someone is taking her ideas seriously, and the pages will fly through your fingers as fast as you can read until you get to the end. John Grisham doesn't quite have his genres down in this book, and apparently the success of The Firm meant that his editors were more interested in getting The Pelican Brief published than making it better. You could fix this novel into a five-star effort with about two hours of editing to reduce the improbabilities and speed up the slow parts. But if you don't mind having unlikely events pull a riveting story together, you'll have a lot of fun with The Pelican Brief. I listened to the reading by Alexander Adams and felt that the story worked better listened to than it would be if read silently. I admire John Grisham for the imagination to conceive of such a wild story. He kept surprising me with his plot developments, and the trip was almost all fun.
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