The Pelican Brief

 

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

Reviewed by Gerti

John Grisham introduces us to a female protagonist in “The Pelican Brief” who must be his ideal woman. Darby Shaw is a brilliant law student at Tulane, so smart in fact that she figures out who killed 2 Supreme Court Justices before even the government does. And that puts her life in danger.

But more than that, Shaw is Grisham’s dream girl, because besides having a first class mind, she is a younger woman who is sleeping with her older and frequently drunk law professor, Thomas Callahan. I sense a little wish fulfillment here, as not only is she brilliant and willing to sleep around, but Darby Shaw is also gorgeous. So stunning that she literally turns heads when she walks down the street, although being modest (as if!), she wears oversized sweaters that hide her rockin’ bod.

Not to take away from the great plot, which has Callahan and his best friend being killed as part of the conspiracy from the White House down to protect the man who wanted the Supreme Court Justices killed just to make more money. Darby is constantly moving and of course outsmarting the government and the virtual mobsters who are chasing her at each turn in order to get hold of “The Pelican Brief”, which she wrote. But like Jennifer Garner in “Alias”, Darby is able to change her identity quickly, dying her hair, moving around thanks to all the money she has, and basically getting help from other fellows who are looking to get in her pants, namely the reporter Gray Grantham. I don’t think it’s an accident that his name sounds a lot like John Grisham, either.

It is a great story, and the suspense level is high. She is being stalked by all kinds of characters, including one of the world’s most infamous assassins, Khamel, who actually killed the esteemed jurists from the highest court in the land. But everyone is so swayed by Darby’s looks, Callahan, Grantham and even “all-business” assassin Khamel, that this reads more like a teenager’s daydream than a classic thriller. Don’t get me wrong – I loved it. But the character of Darby Shaw was so obviously written by a man, and a love-starved middle-aged man, that it is comical and detracts from what would otherwise be a great and gripping story.

Grisham’s writing is as good as it usually is, but I find it hard to enjoy even a thriller like this when the book is so hamstrung by juvenile lusts. I like to think that Darby Shaw could have been a slightly dumpy but brilliant law student, and still written “The Pelican Brief”. But perhaps Grisham wrote the book with the movie version already in mind. Although I had to laugh when Julia Roberts was chosen to play the female lead in the film, and then so obviously didn’t dye or cut her hair (as Darby does many times in the book) to escape the bad guys. It’s just another decision by male “artists” who changed the storyline in order to cater to their vision of female beauty.

Gray Mountain

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Reviewed by Gerti

“Gray Mountain” is the newest offering by famed legal writer John Grisham. It tells the tale of a well-educated New York lawyer named Samantha Kofer who is forced by downsizing at her huge law firm to head to the wilds of Virginia coal country. Her Wall Street law firm promises that if she works for free at a legal aid clinic for a year, her job may be waiting when she returns. So she does the only reasonable thing, and moves to Brady, Virginia.

Samantha whines a lot about missing life in Manhattan, but she manages to make a home for herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. It was not her first choice, but the other options for pro bono work have been filled by other “lucky” associates of her firm and others downsized by the 2008 recession. The clinic is run by Mattie Wyatt, life-long resident of Appalachia who knows firsthand the troubles of the region and the people who live there. The two become friends and Samantha learns how to be a real lawyer, preparing a lawsuit, going into a courtroom, and getting caught up in the human drama of the region.

One of the first people she meets in Brady is Donovan Gray, Mattie’s nephew and an appealing but unscrupulous local lawyer. His reason for living is fighting big coal companies devastating the landscape by strip mining, including the land his family owns at Gray Mountain. Donovan takes Sam up in his plane to show her what the mountain looks like after Big Coal is done with it, and it ain’t pretty. But just like she has fears of working for her father, who was a mass tort lawyer before getting disbarred, Sam has problems with Donovan’s do-anything-it-takes-to-win mentality. She finds out he has stolen incriminating documents from Krull Mining. When his private plane crashes and he is killed, the FBI swoops in to try to get them back, but the papers are hidden deep under Gray Mountain.

Sam eventually helps Donovan’s sexy brother Jeff get those papers to another law firm that has been working with Donovan to sue the company for delaying black lung cases. Donovan’s death also has another coal company dragging its feet over paying the million dollar settlement he got in a case against them right before he died – but it was only a handshake agreement and since the ladies can’t find anything in writing, the coal company reneges on the deal. Sam eventually agrees to take the case to the Virginia Supreme Court for Mattie, and in the process promises to stay around Brady for another year or two.

“Gray Mountain” really opened my eyes to the problems of the Appalachian region and the games coal companies play to keep deserving miners from government mandated settlement money once they get sick. Big coal companies find it more economical to fight the miners’ health claims than pay them, because the men are rarely rich enough to hire lawyers, and besides, they don’t live long with black lung. “Gray Mountain” has a fascinating cast of characters, an unusual plot and a female protagonist which make this an interesting read.