Rating: 
Summary: Not as Good as the Movie.
Review: I feel bad about letting a movie affect my judgement of a book, but what can I say, the movie showed how good the book could have been. The book (and movie) follow the story of Darby Shaw, a law-student, who writes a brief on her theory of who murdered two Supreme Court Justices. When her stab in the dark turns out to be right, the people behind the conspiracy stop at nothing to try to stop the brief from hitting daylight. With the help of Gray Granthum, a reporter, Darby searches for the evidence she needs to prove the brief is true. Let me just say, the book was good. It had suspenseful moments, the characters were believeable, and the story-plot itself ingenious...but the movie did better. The movie took the book and added more suspense, while staying true to the book. The movie also had two great actors, Julia Roberts as Darby and Denzel Washington as Gray, they brought the characters alive even more then the book, excellent acting. I would encourage reading this book, especially if you like Grisham. But I would say to not see the movie until after the book. Both are good, but the movie is just better.
Rating:
Summary: Better then some other books I've read
Review: This book wasn't bad,and it wasn't that great. The book was streched way too long. But the plot was good. These two supreme judges were killed by the same person, and this woman wrote a brief on who she thought did it. She gives it to her lab professor, who hands it over to a FBI lawyer. When the professor later is killed by a car bomb, the woman, whose name is Darby, flees. When the same FBI Lawyer chases after her to protect her, he is killed also. Then Darby calls a reporter, and they team up to unmask the killer. This was a pretty decent book, better than some of John's other books. I recommend you read this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The all-action novel
Review: Pelican Brief isn't one of Grisham's strongest novels but it's certainly a page-turner, it moves with amazing speed, and it's a heck of a lot better than some of his later stuff, like The Street Lawyer or A Painted House. Many of Grisham's novels rely upon courtroom drama - on one lawyer versus another, with some clever legal or psychological trick thrown in for good measure. Pelican Brief relies almost totally on action. Two Supreme Court justices die on the same day. Darby Shaw, a law student comes up with an ingenious theory - they were shot and strangled by an international terrorist so that the conservative president would appoint new, conservative justices who will help out a case involving an industrialist who's no friend of the tree-huggers. Darby's boyfriend, Thomas, gets dissected by a car bomb meant for Darby. She uses her 'get out of hospital free' card and hooks up with a Washington Post reporter, Gray Grantham. But bad guy terrorist is after her and everyone starts dying... Pelican Brief's a fun story - not to be taken too seriously - and will provide an entertaining few hours while the dinner's cooking. But don't expect too much else.
Rating: 
Summary: Just see the movie and get it over with
Review: John Grisham has written some good novels that fall into the "bestseller potboiler" category of fiction, but this is not one of his stronger works. The premise of a high-level coverup on behalf of a nitwit Reagan-esque chief executive is promising, and oil speculators are (now, more than ever) people that we love to hate, but Grisham's execution of his story line is simply overly cliched, contrived, and plodding. Once the basic dynamic of "see Darby run, see Darby outwit her pursuers" is established early on, the story bogs down for (literally!) a couple of hundred pages. We are beaten over the head with just how clever Darby is (especially for such a Babe), and with how nasty and Machiavellian the President's henchmen are. We go from one locale to another and another, always just one step ahead of the hapless bad guys. And--not to provide too much of a spoiler here-- it turns out that the *really* bad guy bears an eerie resemblance to the late Howard Hughes! Enough, already. Oh, one more thing: just how many references to we need to Darby's "long legs?" It actually might have been more refreshing and bold for Grisham to portray Darby as a plain, dumpy, but brilliant law student, but then, Julia Roberts sells more tickets at the box office, right? And there's the crux of the matter: I think Grisham wrote this story fully intending from the beginning that this would be turned into a movie, so in terms of characters, plot, pacing, and ending, the whole affair is unabashedly Hollywood-esque. In fact, the book was made into a pitiably bad 1993 movie starring Roberts and Sam Shepard. While I can't really recommend the flick, at least you'll be done with it in a couple of hours, tops.
Rating: 
Summary: You'll never catch me
Review: This is the best Grisham book i have ever read. The story is great the characters are great and after you read it watch the movie because it is great too. Pretty much Supreme Justices are murdered amatuer law student Darby Shaw know who did it and writes up a brief about them. They find out now she is on the run trying not to get killed. This is a definate book that you will want to read not once not twice but prob 3 or 4 times.
Rating:
Summary: Personal Favorite
Review: This is my favorite Grisham novel, and I can not say enough good things about it. He is devious and clever in his writing, capturing our attention as well as our imagination. Grisham has created a story about the biggest government cover-up since Watergate. It is sensational, realistic, and immensly frightening. It is beautiful. It is destructive. And should definantly be read.
Rating:
Summary: More Than Briefly Satisfying
Review: The novel, The Pelican Brief, by John Grisham, proved to be extremely enjoyable. The Pelican Brief is an extremely suspenseful novel. Grisham provides this suspense and mystery by withholding the outcomes of important events and by keeping secret identities. Because of these tactics, the reader becomes more anxious to discover the outcome of the novel, making this a book that is impossible to put down. The plot of the novel is also complex. Many different stories are occurring simultaneously. These subplots are then connected to form the greater overall plot. Because of the many events occurring, it is necessary that the reader pay attention at all times. The final positive aspect of this novel is the detail with which Grisham describes his characters. Grisham goes to great lengths to describe both the protagonist and the antagonist, giving the reader a sense that he or she is in the story. Some aspects of the book, however, could turn away some potential readers. One such aspect is the sometimes gratuitous violence and gore that is used in the novel. People in the story are strangled to death and run over with cars. More squeamish people would not find this book appealing. Another negative point of the novel is the sexual references that appear throughout the book. There is much talk of pornographic theaters and some references to sexual acts. The final aspect of the book that could be offensive to some people is the constant reference to homosexuals and the homosexual community. Much of the conflict starts over a closet homosexual who is killed when visiting a gay pornography theater. As a result, many events throughout the story focus on the aforementioned subject, which could prove to be uncomfortable to some people. Overall, the novel, The Pelican Brief, was enjoyable to read. It was extremely fast-paced and hard to put down, although the references to sex and pornography do grow tiresome. As with several other Grisham novels, this book would be best recommended to people with an interest in law. People who feel at least moderately comfortable with sexual references and violence would probably also enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: not so good
Review: I never really got taken in by this story. It took 2/3 of the book to really get down to what the pelican brief was. Then the last 1/3 was like watching a car chase. The ending was fluffy, I was expecting an exciting twist that might make the whole book worth reading, but didn't get one. Left disappointed.
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.
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