A Compelling and Exciting Read (The Pelican Brief - John Grisham)

Member Name: wednesday_addams

Product:	The Pelican Brief - John Grisham
Date:	28/12/00 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: exciting, fast-moving

Disadvantages: similar to his other books

I finished reading this book last night. It was about 1:30am, and all yesterday I'd only managed to put this book down to find food or to visit the bathroom.

I was given The Pelican Brief for Christmas as part of a set, and for some reason (probably something to do with the number of times I've intended to see the film but never actually got round to it), I picked this one to read first.

I was not disappointed.

A gripping opening immediately grabbed my attention. The common writer's trick of starting out with a quick build up to the event which sparks off the plot as a whole. In this case, it's an introduction to the two supreme court judges whose murders cause (as is to be expected) total uproar.

In the middle of the chaos, a law student, Darby Shaw, writes an innocent seeming brief, later named the 'pelican brief'. This results in the death of her boyfriend, and she ends up being chased around the US by the same killers who were hired to do away with the two supreme court judges.

She meets a load of other people along her way, most importantly a reporter, and together they manage to drag out the truth.

A cleverly twisted plot with clearly defined and created characters shows that he's done it again.

However, I did notice a remarkable similarity between this plot, and that of the two films taken from his books that I've seen. (The Firm and The Client) Although there are considerable similarities between them, each one is still worth a read. But the first one you read will definately seem the best, regardless of which one it is!

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