Who Wrote The Pelican Brief And When Was It Published?

Investigative researcher Iris Thorne has spent years scrubbing her connection to the elite Blackwood family, living a life of quiet anonymity to escape a past that nearly destroyed her. But her carefully constructed world shatters when a cryptic, wax-sealed letter arrives. Inside is a single photograph of her brother—who went missing three years ago—and a heavy obsidian key to a vault she didn’t know existed. The trail leads directly to the doorstep of the one man she was warned never to cross: Silas Vane. Silas Vane, known to the press as the "Vulture of Tech," is a man of cold steel and calculated silences. Silas is currently facing a silent war of his own; a massive security breach threatens to topple Vane Global, and his board of directors is circling like sharks. He needs a distraction—a fiancé to soften his image and buy him time. Iris needs the secrets hidden in Silas's private vault to find her brother. The arrangement is a high-stakes charade defined by a cold contract and a strict "no-touch" clause. Iris must navigate the silent, surveillance-heavy hallways of the estate while playing the role of the future Mrs. Vane at high-society galas. But as she digs deeper into the house’s encrypted files, she realizes she isn't the only one hunting for the truth. When board members start disappearing and the estate’s AI begins to glitch. Iris realizes she has walked into a gilded death trap. As the lines between her mission and her heart begin to bleed, Iris finds herself drawn to the man behind the mask of the billionaire. With the killer closing in and the secrets of the Blackwood ledger finally coming to light, Iris must decide if Silas Vane is her protector or the predator she was sent to expose?

I was engineered to kill men with a kiss. When my pleasure‑kill protocol glitches on a Bratva king and binds my system to his, he gives me a choice: become his contract wife… or be handed back to the monsters who built me I was trained to destroy men without leaving a mark. The Siren Protocol turned my body into a weapon—every nerve engineered to dismantle loyalty, erase secrets, and turn power into submission. One kiss, and I can crash a neural implant like a virus. Hidden behind a luxury cover identity, I’m waiting for my next directive when my door explodes inward and Kael Petrov walks in—Bratva heir, tech billionaire, and the most controlled man in the city. He thinks he’s here to extract a traitor using his accounts to leak Siren data. He doesn’t know the “escort” in front of him is the Siren asset he’s hunting. So, I do what I was built for. I kiss him. My pleasure‑kill protocol should drop him in eight seconds. Instead, his high‑grade implant bites back. My signal loops through his system and straight into mine, fusing us in a feedback circuit of raw, addictive sensation that neither of us can control. Instead of killing him, I bind myself to him. Now I’m collared in his tower, my systems synced to his, and he’s staring at me like I’m the most interesting problem he’s ever seen. To keep me out of Bratva torture cells but still under his eye, Kael gives me a brutal ultimatum: Marry him and live as his contract wife, or be handed to the men who will take me apart for parts. I was meant to end him. Falling for him was never part of the directive.

Ethan Cross doesn’t just defend monsters—he is one. A predator wrapped in a lawyer’s skin, he stalks the courtroom with the same precision he hunts beneath the moon. Every case he wins buries his secret deeper: a beast who thrives on order and control. Until her. Anna. Wild, relentless, and dangerous as the full moon itself. She doesn’t want mercy—she wants vengeance. Years ago, Ethan’s silver tongue freed the man who left her father in the ground. Now, under the ruin of a forgotten chapel, she shackles Ethan in chains he can’t slip, demanding the one thing he swore he’d never give—his loyalty. But justice in the shadows is no clean crusade. Together, they tear into a city built on corruption, where blood is currency and power tastes sweeter than wine. And somewhere between fury and fire, hate begins to twist into hunger. She was his enemy. He was her captive. But under the full moon, chains ignite, and monsters learn that desire is the most dangerous law of all.

“Tell me you hate me, Victoria,” his voice rasped as his hands slid beneath my skirt, “and I’ll stop.” But my moan betrayed me before my words even could but I still couldn’t let him win. “I hate you,” I whispered, even as my nails dug into his shoulders. He only smirked, dragging me against his hard length pressing into my belly. “Then hate me with your legs open, sweetheart. Because you’ll never hate me enough to stop wanting me.”Prosecutor Victoria Harper hasn’t felt wanted in months. Her fiancé, a rising politician, parades her like a trophy for his campaign but behind closed doors, he starves her of affection and feeds her bruises instead. Then a cruel twist of fate changes everything: she’s pregnant. And the father isn’t her fiancé. It’s Christian Malcolm, her high school bully turned ruthless mafia heir, the very man she’s been building a case to destroy. He’s dangerous. Possessive. Addicted to claiming her and the child growing inside her. And no matter how much she hates him, no matter how fiercely she vows to take him down, her body betrays her with every forbidden glance, every stolen touch. Now Victoria is caught between justice and desire; between the oath she swore to uphold and the man whose kiss sets her on fire. But what happens when the enemy she’s sworn to ruin is the only one who makes her feel alive? ⚠️ Content Warnings: Contains themes of abuse, coercion, emotional manipulation, dark romance, and mature sexual tension. Recommended for readers 18+.

My grandfather, Tanner Kane, valued loyalty above all else. When his adopted daughter, Alanna Meyer, was sentenced to death for murder, he sent my mother, Florence Kane, to her death. All to preserve the bloodline of his late childhood friend. Alanna took my mother's name, married, and lived a privileged life free from hardship. Meanwhile, my mother died carrying a crime she never committed. My father, Graham Hart, and I changed our names and wandered from place to place. For years, I was mocked as a motherless child. Forty years later, after enduring humiliation and dedicating myself to my studies, I became a judge in Arbor Falls. Today, I am presiding over a controversial campus murder case in which the victim fell to her death from a building. There were no surveillance cameras. Only two girls were present, and each insists the other is the killer. One of them, Nova, comes from a poor family. Her parents are divorced, and she associates with local delinquents. She is known throughout the school as a feared bully. The other one, Scarlett, comes from a wealthy family. Her parents have a loving marriage, and she excels academically. Her grandmother is a beautiful and kind-hearted artist. Her great-grandfather spent his entire life doing charity work and was recognized as a nationally renowned philanthropist. Everyone believes she is a good girl who would never lie, so Nova the bully must be the killer. However, when I looked at the name listed under Scarlett's grandmother, I saw my mother's name: Florence Kane. Without a second thought, I turned to the person beside me and said, "Reject her request for acquittal."

I swore vengeance long before I swore the law. The night my twin sister’s future was stolen, a promise was carved into my soul—to dismantle the empire of Alexander Stone, the ruthless leader of the Xander MC. Not with fists or bullets, but with patience, precision, and the law he thinks he’s untouchable from. Now I walk in his shadow. To him, I’m a sharp-tongued lawyer with a backbone of steel—the woman he thinks can shield him from justice. To me, he’s nothing but a target. Every word I speak, every smile I fake, every late-night meeting in smoke-filled rooms is just another thread in the trap I’m weaving around him. But vengeance has its own dangers. Somewhere in the blurred lines of loyalty and deception, I start to feel the pull of the very man I came to destroy. His voice lingers, his touch burns, and the closer I get to ending him, the closer I fall into something I can’t control. He doesn’t know my secret—yet. But when the mask falls, when he realizes the knife has been in my hands all along, it won’t just be a reckoning. It will be war. And in this war between justice and desire, I may lose more than my sister’s revenge… I may lose myself and I don't know if I'll destroy him... or if he'll destroy me first.