Rating: 
Summary: 3 1/2 stars would be more accurate
Review: Once again Grisham follows a familiar recipe for suspense: Innocent good guys + mean bad guys + happy ending. The half star comes from the fact that there is a little mystery involved, however, once again Grisham ends his novel in a hokey, hero flies away with new life, happy ending.If you are a fan of Grisham, read this book. If not, skip it or rent the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: You'll need some toilet paper for this mess
Review: It truly makes me sad that the American public has such little ability to make an independent, intelligent judgment about works of fiction that they cannot see how awful of a writer Grisham is. It further disturbs me that people actually liked this nimbwitted caricature of a legal thriller. Please America, wake up! First, while Grisham may have attended law school, I doubt that he retained more than 20% of the knowledge he may have acquired. As an experienced attorney with a knowledge of both civil and criminal law, I can assure you that if Grisham writes any actual legal content into his novels, his editors must be deleting it. If he has utilized any knowledge of law that cannot be gleemed by talking to a second year law student over lunch, I must have missed it. The biggest example of Grisham's lack of legal acumen is displayed by the main plot line in The Pelican Brief - that some law student could somehow read materials from an obscure Louisiana case and extrapolate their significance to include a presumption that the case would eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court - is just ridiculous. The odds that an attorney with 40 years of appellate experience, let alone a mere law student, could tie the significance of the assasination of several Supreme Court justices to this remote case in Louisiana is about as likely to happen as being struck by an UFO on the top of the Empire State Building. The Supreme Court accepts so few cases a year that there is little likelihood of being able to predict which petitions the Court will grant. Accepting this premise would be about as easy as accepting a filmmaker's decision to cast Shaquille O'Neal for a role playing Tyra Banks. Grisham uses the same tired, cliched themes throughout his novels (at least through The Client, which I completed and then determined not to waste any further time reading Grisham's works). Aren't people getting just a bit tired of his omnipresent theme that one cannot trust law enforcement, particularly the FBI? Don't the all-encompassing powers of the evil businesses and their shareholders stretch boundaries of credibility too thin? Do people actually enjoy reading works of fiction containing subplots that have no satisfying conclusion? The Pelican Brief is simply an altogether inadequate piece of fiction that has been churned out on the heels of The Firm, rather than painstakingly crafted by a writer with appreciation for quality writing. Please people, set higher standards for yourselves than this slop.
Rating:
Summary: Typical John Grisham style
Review: I enjoyed this book. Grisham wants to capture the attention of the reader. And it works although there are a few unbelievable elements in the book. But these unrealistic elements are necessary. I wish the government would react to the opinion of students more often. What is also very intresting in the book is, that at the beginning you just have parts of a story and trough the book you get more an more and at the end you can connect everything like a big puzzle. The book is written in typical John Grisham style, very fast and intresting.
Rating:
Summary: A really great novel
Review: I found the novel "The Pelican Brief" quite interesting. It's about two Supreme Court judges who were killed. A law student named "Darby Shaw" studies some material about older lawsuits and suddenly she recognizes a lot of connections and creates a theoretic file which becomes known as the "Pelican Brief". In this Brief she names the possible murdereres, but like in every thriller the wrong people get this file, too, and the killings go on. That means the beginning of a dangerous run for Darby's life. I think this book is really well-written, with a lot of action, love, crime and nevertheless much fear. I can only recommend this bestseller!!! @ Marcel Jast.
Rating:
Summary: for a few days I was an agent myself
Review: The Pelican Brief embraced me in its arms of tension.It is a very interesting book at every page including the fascinating description of the persons.Sometimes I felt like an agent,too,and imagined to figure out the connections between the characters myself.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting crime and thriller
Review: "The pelican brief" by John Grisham is a very interesting book about two killed judges, a file written by a law student, with a possibility for an answer of the questions "Why were they killed?" and "Who dunit?", and the chase of this student, who wrote the theory. You learn about the American system of law, the work in the Oval Office and the Supreme Court. There is always tension in this well written book. When I started it, I could not stop reading. The book is a bestseller, which does not always show something of its quality, but here it does. I think it was a good idea that the truth appears almost in the end of the book, that makes it so exciting. The book is not only a book about crime, it is also a love story between Gray and Darby and a thriller. A very commendable book!
Rating: 
Summary: "The Pelican Brief" - HARDLY BELIEVABLE!!!
Review: "The Pelican Brief" is an interesting novel. There are many subjects and the connections between them are shown very well at the end of it. But it`s hardly believable. I could not imagine that one brief evokes so heavy reactions at the high powers (White House, FBI and CIA)!!!
Rating:
Summary: A quite good story!
Review: I think that the story of "The Pelican Brief" could be a real story, although there are some elements, which are only in the story to get more tension. But the book is hard to understand for german persons who does not know anything about the system of law in the USA. All together "The Pelican Brief" is a good story of John Grisham.
Rating:
Summary: Quite O.K.
Review: The book itself is well written. But Grisham introduced far too many characters and it is difficult to keep track of who is who. Also it is impossible that a young law student could write a file about the corruption in the white house, the FBI and CIA and that she and the Washington Post reporter Gray Grantham could uncover these corruption. It was not the best of Grisham book I've read, but it is exciting and interesting in reading!
Rating: 
Summary: "The Pelican Brief" - Full of Action
Review: I think John Grisham's "The Pelican Brief" is an excellent, well-written book. The tension increases extremely, so that you keep on reading and consequently cannot stop. It is really a great book full of action with great plot. The author is undoubtfully an expert at crime novels. But if you want to understand the whole action you have to know something about the American system of governmant, FBI and CIA. I recommend this book to really everybody!!!!! ENJOY!!!!
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