The Pelican Brief by John Grisham takes place in the nineties and is based upon a law student named Darby Shaw who writes a brief on an assassin named Khamel who was given orders to kill two of the Supreme Court justices, Abraham Rosenberg and Glenn Jensen. After giving it to her professor and lover Thomas Callahan, he passes the brief to his FBI lawyer friend, which makes its way into the sources of the White House and eventually becomes seen by the killer. After dodging Khamel’s murder attempt on her and seeing others pass due to the assassin’s hands, Darby takes matters into her own hands and contacts reporter Gray Grantham as they work together to find proof to prove Darby’s points in her brief and expose them to the world.
Throughout the book, I was constantly in shock by the plot twists, kept in suspense, and thoroughly interested in the plot of the book. As a lover of thrillers in movies and some books, it was very intriguing to view the realistic relations of twists and turns in Grisham’s plot. There was a crystal clear plot with everything being explained in FULL detail so that readers with little knowledge of the law and government mostly understand the terminologies and situations. However, I only rated this book a 4/5 because there are some…explicit and OVERLY descriptive scenes that one such as myself may be a bit uncomfortable with or opposed to. Also, even though this book is fiction and I love the thriller and suspense genre, my very favorite books are known for being completely unreal, fantastical, and surreal and include adventure and exploration.