Referat The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

America is horrified by the murders of two Supreme Court Judges, though they were political very active there is no apparent reason for these two killings.

Soon the young law student Darby Shaw starts to work out a brief - "the pelican brief", as she calls it - where she sets up her theory why the judges were killed.

She works on her little plot, a shot into the dark and then throws it away, because even to her it seems unreal.

Her professor at university, who is also her lover, is very interested in her little work and considers it as highly interesting. He adores her good work and good research in this work and does not want this work to be useless. Though he does not know what following actions he will break loose,  he passes it to a friend who is an agent at the FBI and asks him to read it. Soon the brief is being passed around and also the White House gets to read it.

A short time later a car bomb explodes, supposed to kill Darby and her lover, though Darby is not in the car with him at this time.

When she recovers from the shock, she starts to file out that she had made the score. And from that moment on the young girl is on the run, followed by one of the best killers of the world. Soon her lovers friend at the FBI is also dead and the killer nearly gets her, too. But meanwhile the FBI had become suspicious that something is wrong in the White House and they send an agent to protect Darby.

Soon the killer is killed by the FBI´s agent, Darby knows nothing about these actions taking part around her. She is very concerned about how to survive without getting caught and leaving no traces.

Finally Darby tells an journalist, Grey Grantham about her story and asks him to help her. She knows that he already had followed other hints, leading in this direction but was not able to put the parts together yet. Darby asks him to end this story by writing an exposing story for the paper. So they start to investigate because they have to prove Darby´s theory before court. Soon they find out about a young dead lawyer, who seemingly committed suicide, but neither Darby nor Grey believe this story. After investigating some more they find out about a big plot of money paid to the president by the Mafia, in order to be able to exploit a nature reserves, where in first line pelicans live.

Through Darby´s little theory the President and many other powerful people can be accused and imprisoned.

In this book the Mafia is characterised rather powerful, even having the president on their paybill. Again they are rather scrupulous, killing everyone who tries to stir up trouble or may be bad for business.

So they had killed the lawyer who found out about the moneys for the president and the nature reserve story. Also Darby and Grey are followed by killers, hired by the Mafia.

The FBI on the other hand  comes off better this time, doing a good job in their investigations, protecting Darby and finally getting the information from her without having to beg for it. Though this time the CIA is involved and had to take over the unsympathetic part of the law, supporting the President to make his friendship and not following every trace, like the FBI.