>>22307405 (lb)

Never read the book.

"The novel starts with the assassination of two U.S. Supreme Court Justices and moves into high gear when a legal brief, written by a Tulane University law student, Darby Shaw, sparks a rash of cover-up murders that has Darby running for her life.

Midway through the novel, she joins forces with Washington Post investigative reporter Gray Grantham to try to prove the allegations in the brief and, meanwhile, keep Darby from becoming another victim.

The story features Darby’s law professor and lover Thomas Callahan, a famed super-assassin named Khamel, a Deep Throat-sort of source known as Garcia, a shadowy operative called Rupert who is trying to track Darby, a slimy chief of staff to the President, several very evil lawyers and the rich guy behind the assassinations and the cover-up who’s slimier and more evil than anyone else on Grisham’s pages.

Then, after more than 300 pages of violent conspiracy and legal skullduggery with Darby at the center, the final pages have to do with Gray working to nail down the biggest story of his career and the biggest since the Watergate scandal two decades earlier.

It’s a high-paced rush to find and pull together the facts and documents necessary to enable Gray, his editors and the Post to bring the story to light, and, despite all the killers running loose, the book’s ending is reminiscent of the 1976 movie All the President’s Men, directed by Alan J. Pakula."

Review by Patrick T. Reardon on September 28th, 2022

https://patricktreardon.com/book-review-the-pelican-brief-by-john-grisham/