Grisham, John - The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief

`The Pelican Brief´ is a political thriller, written by John Grisham. It was published in New York in 1992. Translated into German by Christel Wiemken.

Short Biography of John Grisham:

- born in 1955 in Janesboro, Arkanas
- studied law at the University of Mississippi
- 1981 to 1991 -he was a lawyer in his own law-office
- at1983 he was a member of Parliament of his home state
- today he is only a writer, he lives with his family in Oxford, Mississippi

Setting:

The story takes place in New Orleans, New York and Washington.

Main Characters:

Darby Shaw:

- young law-student
- writes the Pelican Brief
- very clever ( has to survive many deadly traps)

Thomas Callahan:

- law-professor at the University of Tulane
- has an affair with Darby

Gray Grantham:

- is a famous reporter who works for the `Washington Post´
- helps Darby to solve the case

Fletcher Coal:

- is the personal assistant of the president
- tries to stop Darby and Gray

Denton Voyles

- FBI-president

Gavin Verheek

- lawyer, works for the FBI
- friend of Thomas Callahan

Khamel

- profi-killer
- assassinates the judges and Verheek

Victor Mattiece

- the chair man of a big oil company

Point of view:

- omniscient narrator

Conflict:

Two judges are killed and Darby wanted to solve the case and wrote a file . The murderer of the two judges got the order to kill Darby and all other persons, who knows something about this brief.

Plot:

Two famous judges named Jenson and Rosenberg are killed. The police doesn’t know anything about the murderer.

Thomas Callahan had worked for Rosenberg he is very shocked about the killings. His girlfriend Darby Shaw is very interested in the case and she decides to start a file about the two murders. She works about a week but then she gives it up because she thinks that her theory is impossible. However, Callahan believes in it and give the file to his old friend Gavin Verheek. Gavin gives it to Denton Voyles who informs the White House about it. Fletcher Coal doesn’t like Voyles’plan to solve the case because the president is also mentioned in the file. He suggests that the president should stop Voyles and so he does. At one day Thomas Callahan gets killed when his car explodes. Darby is very sad and then she knows that it has to do something with the file. She and Gavin want to meet each other but Gavin gets killed by Khamal who had also killed the judges. He wants to kill Darby but an unknown man helps her and murders Khamal.

Meanwhile Gray Grantham gets a call from a man who knows about the assassinations but he doesn’t wants to say his name. Gray gives him the name `Garcia´ and the mysterious man wants to meet Gray after a second call. At last Garcia backs out because he won’t have his family to get in danger. Gray starts to search him.

Darby doesn’t know what to do anymore and so she calls Gray. Then they meet and Darby tells him about her theory: A few years ago an oil company discovered a big oil resource in Louisiana. The company belonged to Victor Mattiece. He wanted to get a permission for his company to search for the oil. So he bribed some judges to get the permission but then a law- office tried to stop him. They told the judges that the oil-resource was in the near of a wildlife resource where the ‘brown Louisiana Pelican’ lived. So the court decided that the case should be discussed at the highest law-court in the USA. Rosenberg and Jensen always wanted to save nature and so they would have been a big problem for Mattiece. So he ordered a profi- killer to murder them. Victor Mattiece also sponsored the election campaign of the president.

Gray and Darby decide to search for Garcia in one of the law-office which works for Mattiece. It’s name was `White and Blazevich´. There Darby gets a bad message: Garcia was shot by a street robber. Gray and Darby know that this was one of Mattiece’s men. The real name of Garcia was Curtis Morgan. They visit Morgan’s wife and she gives Gray a key for a safe-deposit box in a bank. There Darby and Gray find a video cassette and a document which is signed by Curtis Morgan. This is the evidence which Darby use for her theory.

Gray and Darby write an article which proves that Victor Mattiece is responsible for the murders. Then they inform the FBI, the White House and White and Blazevich. Some hours later Fletcher Coal resigns his job. FBI-president Denton Voyles tells Darby about Khamel and the unknown man who killed him. Then he helps her to get out of USA.

Stylistic Devices:

- style: very formal, dialogs are written in slang
- language: easy sentence structure in dialogs (no dialogs-not so easy)
- in dialogs are used irony and exaggeration
- flashback: Darby dreamt about her past

Theme:

John Grisham wanted to point out in some of his works to the old right system in the USA.