The Pelican Brief
John Grisham, 1992
★ 4.06 from 455.8k ratings on Goodreads
A law student's hunch about two murdered Supreme Court justices makes her the target of a hunt she never asked for. A calm, plain-spoken thriller pace carries you through Washington power games and one student's rising unease.
Feels like serenity, unease and curiosity. About society, power and ambition.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy legal and political thrillers built around institutions, ambition, and a lone hunch. Be warned that the political detail and length can drag for some readers, and reactions to Darby and the ending are mixed.
Why read it
Pick it up for a brisk, plain-spoken look at how a private hunch can collide with public power, without heavy prose.
A page from the book
What a colleague's death looks like from behind a locked door.
Runyan picked his fingernails with the paper clip and smiled slightly to himself. Rosenberg’s death, by any means or method, would be a relief. No, it would be a glorious occasion. The Chief would have to wear black and give a eulogy, but behind locked doors he would chuckle with his law clerks. Runyan liked this thought. What readers say
Readers found this a gripping, fast-paced legal-political thriller, often hard to put down, though some were bored by the politics and length. Darby’s portrayal and the ending drew mixed reactions, with some finding her unconvincing and the conclusion unsatisfying.
John Grisham.Before writing full time, Grisham practiced law in Southaven, Mississippi, and served one term in the state House of Representatives.
Books that feel like this
More by John Grisham
The Rainmaker
John Grisham, 1995
A broke law student sues an insurance company for a family it refused to help, and finds out what a lawsuit really costs.
The Street Lawyer
John Grisham, 1985
A young associate witnesses a terrifying heist in a high-stakes law firm, forcing him to confront the true power structures that lie beneath the veneer of corporate justice.
Sycamore Row
John Grisham, 2013
After a Mississippi man hangs himself, a handwritten will sets lawyer Jake Brigance against a town determined to bury the past.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Pelican Brief for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy legal and political thrillers built around institutions, ambition, and a lone hunch. Be warned that the political detail and length can drag for some readers, and reactions to Darby and the ending are mixed.
- What is The Pelican Brief like?
- A calm, plain-spoken thriller pace carries you through Washington power games and one student's rising unease. Feels like serenity, unease and curiosity. About society, power and ambition.
- What should I read after The Pelican Brief?
- If you liked The Pelican Brief, try The Bear and the Dragon (Tom Clancy), The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsyth) and Disclosure (Michael Crichton).
A taste of the feed
The founder who can’t imagine a life after the company.
“Nobody knows,” Sanders said. “Bob built the company from nothing, fifteen years ago. When he started, he was selling knockoff modems from Korea. Back when nobody knew what a modem was. Now the company’s got three buildings downtown, and big facilities in California, Texas, Ireland, and Malaysia. He builds fax modems the size of a dime, he markets fax and E-mail software, he’s gone into CD-ROMs, and he’s developed proprietary algorithms that should make him a leading provider in education markets for the next century. Bob’s come a long way from some guy hustling three hundred baud modems. I don’t know if he can give it up.”
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And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing him, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an icelike throbbing in his stomach and his legs and his chest, oddly warmed by the cold sea around him. He felt these things, acknowledging his own panic as he felt them. He could see his own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. He could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle—yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved.
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The patiance it takes to see one true thing, everything else scrape away.
Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition—and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth—the naked shining truth.
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