The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

A killer’s sneakers whisper across the floor of a fancy home in suburban Georgetown. Far away in a gay movie theater in Washington, D.C., a patron is strangled to death. The breaking news across America the next day is that of the shocking assassination of two of the country’s Supreme Court Justices. Darby Shaw, a young law student in New Orleans drafts a legal brief. To her, it is just a brilliant guess, but in the corridors of power at the Washington establishment it is considered a political dynamite. Soon, she finds herself a witness to a murder that was actually intended for her. Going into hiding, she realizes that there is just one trustworthy person who happens to be an ambitious reporter. The reporter is the only person who can help Darby fit the pieces of the deadly jigsaw puzzle. A cover-up that is very violent is being staged between Louisiana and the inner sanctums of the White House. Someone has stumbled upon Darby’s shot-in-the-dark legal brief and will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of this heinous crime and preserve the secrets of the Pelican Brief. Published in the year 1992, The Pelican Brief’s film adaptation was released in the following year. It starred Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington as the main protagonists.