The Pelican Brief is a legal-suspense thriller written by John Grisham in 1992. The hardcover edition was published by Doubleday in that same year. Two paperback editions were published, both by Dell Publishing in 1993. A film adaptation was released in 1993 starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. The story begins with the assassination of two philosophically divergent Supreme Court Justices. Liberal Justice Rosenberg is killed at his home, while the conservative Justice Jensen is killed inside a gay porn cinema. The circumstances surrounding their deaths, as well as the deaths... themselves, shock and confuse a politically divided nation. While the public speculates about who may have killed them and why, the main character, Darby Shaw, a Tulane University Law School student, decides to research the two justices' records and cases pending before the Court, suspecting the real motive might be simple greed, not politics. She writes a legal brief speculating that the assassinations were committed on behalf of Victor Mattiece, an oil tycoon wanting to drill for oil on Louisiana marshland which is a major habitat of an endangered species of pelican.
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| Author: | John Grisham |
| Genre: | Novel, Fiction, Children's literature |
| Year published: | 1992 |
| Number of editions: | 21 |