The nudes (novel)

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The file (original title: The Pelican Brief ) is a 1992 novel by the American author John Grisham . The book belongs to the genre of justice thriller. It is about Darby Shaw, a law student who uncovered a conspiracy by which an oil billionaire wants to secure drilling rights in a threatened natural area. The conspiracy goes so far that judges are murdered for it and even the White House is involved. Darby Shaw manages to publicize the conspiracy together with a journalist from the Washington Post . The book was a bestseller in the USA and Germany and was filmed in 1993 with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington under the same title - The Files .

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The novel begins with two closely spaced murders of two judges from the United States Supreme Court . The reader learns that both murders were carried out by a dangerous contract killer Khamel. The motive for the murders is unclear to the general public.

The law student Darby Shaw suspects that the murder of the judges is not politically motivated and is conducting intensive research. She records her results in a dossier , supplemented by document copies, in which she speculates about the background, possible connections, perpetrators and motives for the crime. Darby Shaw calls her dossier the "pelican file", with the pelican in the title representing the entirety of the biotopes , their fauna and flora in southern Louisiana , which are endangered by the case that caused the two judges to die.

Darby leaves the files to her professor and lover Thomas Callahan, a law professor, who in turn passes them on to a friend and lawyer at the FBI , Gavin Verheek. In this way, the file also reaches White House staff . A short time later, Callahan dies from a car bomb. Darby is a witness to the bomb attack, which she narrowly escapes. Because she was interrogated by suspicious men posing as police officers immediately after the bombing, she suspects that someone is after her too. She goes into hiding to escape the murderous hunt that begins, because almost everyone who reads the files is dead a short time later.

First, Darby tries to get in touch with Gavin Verheek in the hope that he can help her. Before she can meet him, however, Verheek is murdered by the hit man Khamel. The murder is part of Khamel's attempt to find Darby, as he now has the assignment to murder Darby as well. Khamel manages to meet up with Darby by impersonating Verheek. Before he manages to murder Darby, however, he is suddenly shot himself by an unknown person. Darby then goes into hiding again.

Darby eventually gets in touch with Washington Post journalist Gray Grantham to publicize the results of their files. Based on their research, Darby assumes that Victor Mattiece, an oil tycoon, wants to secure the very lucrative drilling rights in the Louisiana Marshlands in a criminal way. Because he is involved in a long process with environmentalists, his hope is the Supreme Court. In order for the latter to decide in his favor, he had the only two candidates who could possibly decide in favor of the environmentalists murdered in the hope that the president, himself a hardliner, would replace them with conservative candidates.

Grantham is also in contact with an informant, alias "Garcia," who suspects that something in the law firm he works for may be related to the judges' murders. Garcia eventually backs down and refuses to meet Grantham. However, this informant could be crucial in supporting Darby's theory, which is why Darby and Grantham set out to find Garcia.

While Darby and Grantham are doing their research, the file has long since arrived at the White House. The reader learns that Mattiece supported the president financially. Fearing that the Pelican file and Mattiece's machinations will become public, the President and his chief of staff, Fletcher Coal, try to cover up the Mattiece connection. The President also instructs FBI Director F. Denton Voyles to drop work on the file. Instead, he transfers the investigation to CIA director Bob Gminski, whom he trusts more. The CIA first sends an agent to Mattiece to have confidential talks with him, but Mattiece has that agent murdered on arrival at his secret accommodation.

Darby and Grantham use detective work to track down the informant "Garcia". You are too late, however, because the informant has already been murdered. However, he has left a written testimony and a videotape testimony that Darby and Grantham are able to obtain. It appears from these materials that he accidentally came across internal correspondence. The law firm he works for has helped a client, oil billionaire Victor Mattiece, use criminal methods to obtain lucrative drilling rights in a sensitive biotope in southern Louisiana. This coincides with Darby's results from her Pelikan file. Darby's analysis of the connections and causes of the murder as well as background perpetrators and masterminds has thus proven to be accurate.

With this evidence, Grantham and Darby go to the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, who now agrees to publish the story because it is well documented. A group of Washington Post employees, Darby and Grantham, begin work on the article. FBI Director Voyles, who has been asked for comment, appears in the editorial office of the Washington Post. He reveals that he has a record of the President ordering him to stop investigating the Pelican file and that the CIA is still investigating. It also turns out that an FBI agent killed the hit man Khamel to save Darby's life. Voyles supports the editorial team in their work. He also provides Darby with a plane in which she can fly to a destination of her choice in order to submerge again.

The story eventually appears as the main headline in the Washington Post. As a result, the law firm that Mattiece represents is searched and the lawyers involved are threatened with arrest. One of these lawyers then committed suicide. Mattiece disappears and the president is likely to lose his re-election.

The book ends with Darby in hiding outside the United States, visited by Gray Grantham.

characters

  • Darby Shaw - 2nd year law student, author of the file
  • Gray Grantham - Washington Post reporter
  • Fletcher Coal - White House Chief of Staff, unofficial head of power
  • Khamel "Sam" - international hit man
  • Thomas Callahan - Professor at Tulane Law School, lover of Darby Shaw
  • Gavin Verheek - FBI attorney, friend of Thomas Callahan
  • F. Denton Voyles - Director of the FBI
  • Bob Gminski - Director of the CIA
  • The President - (a fictional) President of the United States
  • Judge Rosenberg - oldest, most controversial Supreme Court judge, murder victim
  • Judge Jensen - youngest Supreme Court judge, second murder victim

Position in literary history

The Pelican Brief ( The Act ) is the third novel by John Grisham after his debut A Time to Kill (dt. The jury ) and his second novel, The Firm ( The company ). The Firm and The Pelican Brief , in particular , were instrumental in making Grisham known as a writer of legal thrillers. With the structure and theme of The Files , Grisham had found a pattern that he used to structure his following novels: Grisham's novels are often about young lawyers or law students who uncover a scandal and have to fear for their lives as a result .

John Grisham is named together with Scott Turow as the author of the genre of judicial crime or judicial thriller, in which the cases and the main characters come from the judicial environment. However, Grisham is not the first author to make lawyers the main characters in a crime thriller: Erle Stanley Gardner made a lawyer the protagonist of his hero Perry Mason in his crime novels between 1935 and 1970 .

reception

The book was a bestseller in the USA and also in Germany. In Germany, the book was listed at number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list for a total of 90 weeks from 1992 to 1994 . In 1993 it was the only front runner.

The reception from literary criticism was mixed. Giles Smith from the British Independent praises the outstanding build-up of tension: the reader encounters many characters who are part of the conspiracy and who know about it, while the reader is left in the dark for a very long time about the exact background and motives of the conspiracy. Grisham's knowledge of the judiciary (as a former attorney), which shows through in his books, is also recognized. The dialogues, the exchangeable locations and the plot, which is a little too reminiscent of the Watergate affair , are viewed critically .

Other critics have criticized the fact that The Files, like other John Grisham novels, are always structured according to the same, repetitive pattern. The magazine Der Spiegel also comments that Grisham is again cannibalizing the only topic he seems to have for The Files : the ailing American legal system.

Adaptations as audio book and film

There is an audio book version for both the English original and the German translation: the English version with Anthony Heald as narrator, the German version with Charles Brauer. The novel was made into a film in 1993 with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington under its title - The Pelican Brief (Eng. The Files ).

literature

Text output

  • John Grisham: The Pelican Brief . Doubleday, New York 1992. (Original English edition)
  • John Grisham: The files . Translated from English by Christel Wiemken. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1993. (German translation)

Audio books

  • John Grisham: The Pelican Brief . Voiced by Anthony Heald. Bantam Doubleday Dell, New York 1992.
  • John Grisham: The files . Translated from English by Christel Wiemken. Voiced by Charles Bauer. Random House Audio, Munich 2016.

Secondary literature

  • Joachim Kronsbein: child among killers. The American John Grisham conquered the bestseller lists worldwide with justice thrillers. Is Hollywood now also benefiting from the success of the ex-lawyer? In: Der Spiegel , issue 28/1993, pp. 163–165.
  • Jochen Schmidt: gangsters, victims, detectives . A type story of the crime novel. KBV, Hillesheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-940077-69-1 .
  • Giles Smith: Book Review - Dying to know more: 'The Pelican Brief' - John Grisham . In: Independent , last accessed on February 23, 2020.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jochen Schmidt: Gangsters, victims, detectives . A type story of the crime novel. KBV, Hillesheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-940077-69-1 , p. 471.
  2. ↑ Jochen Schmidt: Gangsters, victims, detectives . A type story of the crime novel. KBV, Hillesheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-940077-69-1 , p. 466.
  3. ^ Giles Smith: Book Review - Dying to know more: 'The Pelican Brief' - John Grisham . In: Independent , last accessed on February 23, 2020.
  4. ↑ Jochen Schmidt: Gangsters, victims, detectives . A type story of the crime novel. KBV, Hillesheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-940077-69-1 , p. 471.
  5. ↑ Joachim Kronsbein: Child among killers. The American John Grisham conquered the bestseller lists worldwide with justice thrillers. Is Hollywood now also benefiting from the success of the ex-lawyer? In: Der Spiegel , issue 28/1993, pp. 163–165.
  6. ↑ The files in the Internet Movie Database, last accessed on February 23, 2020.