FICTION

THE PELICAN BRIEF by John Grisham (Doubleday: $22.50; 371 pp.). Some books are born to movie deals, others have movie deals thrust upon them. This one bears the box-office chromosome. Grisham has fashioned a sexy (if oddly sexless) thriller about a gorgeous young law student who stumbles upon the identity of the man who hired an assassin to snuff out two Supreme Court justices. The ancient liberal justice Rosenberg and his conservative, closeted gay associate seem to have nothing in common, save that each man meets a gruesome death on the same evening. But dogged bibliophile Darby Shaw finds a connection that has eluded all of Washington--in part because she has a great mind, in part because the golf-playing President of the United States has good reason not to want anyone to solve the crime. What makes this Hollywood fodder is Grisham’s ability to mix and match the elements of commercial fiction. The symbiosis is almost irresistible. Tom Clancy can write about political espionage, but Grisham does it with a woman-in-distress overlay. And what a woman. Darby Shaw is every boy’s dream--red-haired and -toed, thanks to a lover with a pedicure fetish, tall (most of it great legs) and, in a nod to the demands of post-feminist America, brilliant, but still accessible. Even the predictable dips in the pace (How long is it going to take for the guys who can save her to figure this one out?) are fun.