The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief is a political thriller from John Grisham. It was published by Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. / New York in 1992. Subject In a cold october night two judges of the highest law-court are killed. A young law-student writes a file about her theory of the murders. But she doesn?t know how dangerous this file is for everybody who read it.

So she also has to run for her life.

Darby Shaw: She is the young law-student who writes the Pelican brief after the murders. She is a very clever person who has to survive a lot of deadly traps. Gray Grantham: He is a famous reporter who works for the Washington Post. He helps Darby to solve the case. Thomas Callahan: He is a law-professor at the University of Tulane. He has an affair with Darby.

Khamel: He is the profi-killer who assassinates the judges and Verheek. Events / Plot In a cold october night the two famous judges Rosenberg and Jensen are killed. The police doesn t know anything about the murderer. Thomas Callahan, a law-professor, can?t believe it.

He had worked for Rosenberg a few years ago. He is very shocked about the killings. His girlfriend Darby Shaw, a law-student, is very interested in the case. She decides to start a file about the two mysterious murders. She works a whole week for the file but then she gives it up, because she thinks that her theory is impossible. But Callahan likes it and gives the file to his old friend Gavin Verheek who works as a lawyer for the FBI. Gavin decides to give it to Denton Voyles, the FBI-president. Voyles decides to investigate into the theory.

He informs the White House about the file. Fletcher Coal, the personal assistant of the president of the United States, doesn?t like Voyles? plan because the president is also mentioned in the file. He suggests that the president should stop Voyles. One day later the president orders Voyles to stop his investigations. Meanwhile Gray Grantham, a reporter from the Washington Post, gets a call from a man who knows anything about the assassinations but he doesn?t want to say his real name. He suggests Gray to call him Garcia and he wants to meet Gray after a second call. Gray finds out the call-box where Garcia had called him and decides to wait there to take a photo of him. Then they want to meet each other, but a short time before that Garcia backs out. He doesn?t want to get his family in danger. Gray begins to search for him. After a dinner in a restaurant Thomas Callahan is drunk. Darby decides to walk home because she doesn?t want to drive with Thomas. Suddenly the car explodes and Thomas is dead. Darby is very shocked, she can?t believe it.

Who could have done it? But at home she understands: Her file is responsible for it.

She asks Gavin Verheek about it and tells him about the explosion. Gavin is very concerned and wants to meet Darby, but he is killed by Khamel, the murderer of Rosenberg and Jensen. He has recorded the phone call between Darby ...