The Pelican Brief by John Grisham [Book Review]

The Pelican Brief is about a brief report written by a law student named Darby Shaw about a prospective lead on the murders of two Supreme Court Justices - Abraham Rosenberg and Glenn Jensen. Khamel, an international terrorist was paid millions for the job. The event was so big and horrible that many were shocked and compelled to investigate - that includes the media, FBI, CIA, Interpol, the White House, lawyers, law students, and laymen alike. Darby Shaw spent four days writing the brief and thought it was a long shot. She mindlessly gives it to her boyfriend Thomas Callahan who was also her professor at Tulane. Callahan then passed it to Gavin Verheek, his bestfriend who was legal counsel of the FBI. Verheek passed it to his chum FBI Deputy Director K.O. Lewis and from then the report was became known as the Pelican Brief made its way to the White House and media. Darby Shaw lives in New Orleans, Louisiana where the pelican is the state bird. FBI Director F. Denton Voyles was somewhat delighted as the White House was giving them the flak for the errors in guarding the justices. Apparently it has something that would implicate the President. Voyles makes an agreement with the president that they, especially Chief of Staff Fletcher Coal, whom Voyles described as a mad dog, would give the FBI a break. But when Professor Callahan and his Porsche was bombed to bits and pieces and Legal Counsel Verheek was found murdered at his house, they can no longer ignore that the Pelican Brief has someone agitated. Washington Post reporter Gray Grantham was following his own leads. He has an informer on the White House and an informant named Garcia called him out of nowhere. Meanwhile Darby Shaw, who wrote the brief, was literally running for her life. Luckily for her, her father left her an inheritance to last her a lifetime. She was living from hotel to hotel, city to city and state to state. Darby Shaw decided to call the Washington Post and eventually made a rendezvous with Grantham. She also had a meeting with Khamel the assassin who posed as Verheek, Callahan's bestfriend. By a stroke of luck, Khamel was killed by one of the CIA operatives following her around. Grantham tracked Garcia as a lawyer named Curtis Morgan but he was one week dead. He was eliminated because what of he knew. Later, Morgan's widow gives them a key to a locker which has damning evidences on the suspects. Curtis Morgan, who was fearing for his life wrote an affidavit, have it notarized and prepared a tape. He would expose his would-be murderers. Victor Mattiece was a millionaire who has donated millions to the President although he says there was nothing illegal in it. He plans to convert marshlands into oil rigs - his land was sitting on billions of dollars of oil and natural gas. However the land is a protected wildlife reserve. There was a memo that retiring Justices Rosenberg and Jensen will be good for their cause. The two justices were staunch environmentalists. They believe in the code that the environment is above individuals, individuals above the governement, and the government above businesses. If the President can appoint two justices who would see things their way is good news as two of nine justices can sway decisions. Victor Mattiece and his lawyers are guilty of the murders. Mattiece would hide as he is out of the country, one lawyer committed suicide while the others will face the charges. Chief of Staff Coal took the fall for the President who also seen in a picture with Mattiece. FBI Director Voyles would protect himself with a recording that the President was saying lay-off on the Pelican Brief investigations. They were saying Gray Grantham would win the Pulitzer prize for this piece. Probably, they say this was the biggest case in twenty years and he cracked it up. But his mind was somewhere else. His adventures with Darby Shaw has developed a romantic partnership but she was not ready for a new relationship. Later Gray Grantham joins Darby Shaw somewhere in a Carribean villa where they will take a long vacation.