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Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: In suburban Georgetown, a killer's Reeboks whisper on the floor of a posh home. In a seedy D.C. porno house, a patron is swiftly garroted to death. The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief. To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it's political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder--a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds that there is only one person--an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate--she can trust to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous of Louisiana and the White House's inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For someone has read Darby's brief--someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime. From the Paperback edition..… (more)
User reviews
This was an exciting but implausible thriller. Darby is a well-written character and it's nice to read a book with a strong, intelligent heroine. Unfortunately, it's not clear until well into the book what Darby's feelings for Callahan really were, it should have been clear earlier that she loved him and was not a student having an affair with a professor in order to get an A. She conveniently has plenty of money, so she can use cash on the run, rather than leave a trail by using plastic. And it strains readers credibility that a law student can outwit trained assassins. Some of the other characters in the book blend into each other and I wasn't always clear as to who some of them were. Grisham does clear up some loose ends, but at the last minute, as if he suddenly remembered them.
Despite these flaws, the story is exciting enough to keep the reader turning pages and worth reading as long as you don't think too much about it.
Now, with it firmly on the CAE reading list, as a matter of duty, I’ve read it.
I am tempted
The Time Filler.
A good time filler is strong on plot, adequate with language, sufficient with character and not too far from realism to cause concern. It will roll along never pausing for too long in any one place or with any one person, love affairs are reduced to brief encounters, killings are counted in serial-numbers and enough petrol and aviation fuel is burnt to raise the Earth’s average temperature another degree.
The Pelican Brief is a good time filler.
I took four sessions to finish the 420-odd pages, and didn’t feel pressed for time – it is a rapid read.
The plot is sort of realistic in that you can imagine someone wanting to bump off a couple of American Supreme Court justices to change the ‘political’ make-up of the Supreme court – but the book does stretch credibility a little with the descriptions and personalities of both the victims and their executioner – it seemed as though Gresham had gone through a check list of ‘most likely to make a best seller’ qualities and selected them for inclusion.
The same too with his heroine, Darby Shaw, who is a least female and intelligent – more intelligent than most of the other characters in the book. However, she never really escapes the cliché of female as victim in need of a good man to support her. Why did she have to be a blond bombshell? Why couldn’t she have been short, stumpy even, and ugly? Why does the book have to end in such a ‘happy ever after’ way on a beach?
One answer is the sales figures – and film rights.
All the way through I felt I was getting exactly what I wanted – no surprise other than a needed plot twist, no truly ambiguous character – just good guy and bad guy (and a very obvious – you got it wrong, good guy portrayed as bad).
And some very film-able locations – including Washington, New York and a pre-deluge New Orleans.
It occupied me pleasantly enough, but I ended with a – that’s it? and so what? Turned the light off, and slept well.
Back Cover Blurb:
Late one night, Abe Rosenburg, the Supreme Court's liberal legend is gunned down in his own home. The same night, Myron Jensen, the court's youngest and most conservative justice, is strangled . What linked the two men and what caused their
Pelican strains credulity beyond belief, after reading this it would be difficult to imagine
Pelican is a dud, client is nirvana!
Grisham's production is variable and operates in a very broad range.
Having read both of these books back to back, I can also see the similarities of Grisham's view of the legal profession, and whilst he is the expert, and I am not, I find it hard to believe that the lawyer firms he describes are just big sweatshops, where everyone works 12-18 hour days, six days a week. Lawyers are supposed to be intelligent...
Not sure now if I am going to keep reading Grisham - the lack of attention to character development is the big miss for me.
The story is different, in fact,very different from normal storylines in most of the books out there on the market. It is refreshing and interesting because it shows how one ordinary lady, Darby Shaw, can come up with a solution that all the experts could
Once, she realizes that the killers are after her, she knows that she must stay one step ahead of them, so she doesn't stay in one place for two nights. During these chapters the book is thrilling when Darby is being chased, and each time you think this is her last day on Earth she escapes death.
In my opinion, Grisham, wrote a trilling, legal mystery that will keep your interest from the first page to the last page.
Enjoy, I highly recommend this book.
What's truly frightening is how many parallels can be drawn between Grisham's President and the orange wonder-douche currently squatting in the oval office. I know, I know, you can find parallels anywhere if you look hard enough, but honestly it doesn't take much effort to see that Grisham's clueless, blustering President, who cedes all authority to Fletcher Cole while spending most of his time in the Oval Office practicing his putting and wishing he was on the course, depressingly prescient.
As for plotting, I still hold this one as one of the most intricately plotted books I've ever read. I don't mean Darby's story, but the conspiracy that Darby uncovers - as many times as I've read this, it never gets old, never fails to enthral me. The plotting goes a long way towards making up any inadequacies in the writing itself (if Darby told anyone, one more time, about how much she'd survived to date, I thought I might shoot her myself).
Still a good read!
Essentially, a young law student floats the idea of a conspiracy behind the murder of two supreme court judges, after discarding the theory herself as
Overall, it's an excellent thriller mainly focused on the student fleeing for her life, the conspiracy & cover up actions. There's next to no legal proceedings and no real courtroom action, but it's still a good book, just not that sort of book.
My biggest criticism of this book was the casual
All of this for little in the end, as the great earth-shattering conspiracy turns out to be a little weak, and the climax isn't particularly satisfying.