The Pelican Brief Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

The Pelican Brief Plot Summary

Preview of The Pelican Brief Summary:

After a consummate professional assassinates two Supreme Court justices, the surviving justices, the FBI, the CIA, the White House, a law professor in New Orleans, and his beautiful, brilliant student/lover, look for a motive. Darby Shaw discovers the link, which she describes in the "pelican brief," which kills those who know about it, but is ultimately published and brings the mighty down.

Two of nine Supreme Court Justices refuse FBI bodyguards and are murdered within hours of one another—crippled, cantankerous old Rosenberg in his bed and young Jensen in a gay porno theater. The White House is overjoyed at the prospect of filling two seats before the general election when Democrats might prevail and thwart an ideological takeover by the right. The Court and constitutional law scholars play amateur sleuth. Law student Darby Shaw looks for who might most benefit and produces what becomes known as the "pelican brief." She...
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