The Pelican Brief

How it reads

The Pelican Brief is thriller (legal political thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a big city setting, in the recent past, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are justice, power and politics and secrets. In weight it's light and escapist — easy to fall into.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.