Protect And Defend

'A superlative legal drama' Sunday Telegraph

In Protect and Defend, Richard North Patterson has caught lightning in a bottle. It's a brilliant political novel and a terrific tale of suspense. You can't put the damn thing down, and you don't want to

Protect and Defend is an important novel on passion and politics. Richly rewarding in both story and character, this is a tale that appeals to both the intellect and the heart

Richard North Patterson has written a number of novels including the international bestsellers, Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgement, Silent Witness, No Safe Place, Dark Lady and Protect and Defend. His novels have won the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. He and his wife, Laurie, live with their family in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard.

'She was a girl, really, with short red hair and a waif-like slimness. But despite the flowered dress she wore, her belly had begun to show. Immobile, the girl gazed at the clinic as though it were a thousand miles away.' 
 
The young woman is Mary Ann Tierney. She is fifteen years old. Within days her name will be known to millions across America, her court case a television must-watch for everyone from the President downwards. As Mary Ann takes on her own parents and the constitutional law of the United States in a desperate bid to protect her future right to bear children, the ramifications of 'the Tierney case' bring a threat to the new President, Kerry Kilcannon, to his nominee for Chief Justice, Caroline Masters, and to his main rival for the Presidency, Senator Chad Palmer. All have dangerous secrets in their past, secrets that would not only threaten careers, but bring death and tragedy to innocent lives.

Dark Lady

The setting is Steelton, a struggling Midwestern town trying to save its decaying inner city by building a major league baseball stadium. Dark Lady introduces Assistant County Prosecutor Stella Marz, who has escaped her alcoholic father and working class background to become head of the Prosecutor's homicide unit. Her ambition is to become County Prosecutor. But this ambition, indeed her very survival, is threatened when her ex-lover Jack Kovak, a drug lawyer, is murdered, and Stella leads the investigation. There are more deaths and revelations about Jack Kovak's dealings with the city's crime lord, and a trail of wrong-doing, that implicates officers in law enforcement, possibly within her own office. As her inquiry draws her into a re-examination of her own complex past, her certainty that she is being watched and followed, leads her to fear for her own future.

No Safe Place

The focus is on politics in the new thriller from bestselling author Richard North Patterson.

No Safe Place centres on seven days in a closly contested Presidential primary, in which political violence, abortion politics and potential scandal all converge. Kerry Kilcannon is a young senator from New Jersey, the younger brother of a murdered presidential aspirant. Now Kerry, too, is seeking the presidency. But Kerry's past and present have begun to converge. Unknown to him, he is being stalked by Sean Burke, an anti-abortion fanatic intent on killing him before election day. And Nate Cutler, a political reporter for a national newsmagazine is trying to establish that two years before - while still married - Kilcannon had an affair with Lara Costello, another reporter covering Kilcannonm which resulted in an abortion. Through a narrative which weaves past and present, No Safe Place introduces the compelling character, Kerry Kilcannon, and raises questions about abortion politics, the gun culture in America, and the degree to which the press is - or should be - intent on exposing the private lives of political leaders. On the eve of the election, those forces converge in a sensational and shocking climax.

The Lasko Tangent

Richard North Patterson has been a San Francisco trail lawyer and a partner in the firm of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown &amp; Emerson. He is now a full-time writer. His first novel, The Lasko Tangent, won an Edgar Allan Poe award and his five books, Degree of Guilt, Eyes of a Child, The Final Judgement, Silent Witness and No Safe Place have been top five New York Times bestsellers.

William Lasco is a self-made multimillionaire who's got an eye for wealth and influence, the ear of the President, and a talent for using both to get what he wants. Now the Economic Crime Commission wants the corrupt, untouchable Lasko brought down - and US Attorney Christopher Paget is tipped to take on the job. To gather enough evidence to nail Lasko without alienating the White House, Paget has to go by the book. But Lasko makes his own rules. And eliminating his enemies is William Lasko`s golden rule. . In The Lasko Tangent, Richard North Patterson has written an unstoppable thriller of one man's fight for justice - the man who became the hero of his phenomenal international bestseller, Degree of Guilt.

Silent Witness

1967, Lake City, Ohio. Tony Lord and Sam Robb, both in their teens, are best friends and athletic rivals. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful San francisco attorney; sam is an assistant principal at Lake City High School. Sam has never left home, and Tony has never returned since the trauma that changed his life: the brutal murder of his first love, Alison, of which he was wrongly accused and which turned everyone, even Sam, against him. Now Sam is a suspect. One of his female students has been murdered. Tony, reluctantly but inevitably, comes back to defend him. At once, Tony is plunged into the unfinished business of his past. In the merciless arena of a murder trial, he must confront not only his fear that Sam is a murderer but also the buried truths that obscure the real meaning of Alison's death. Powerful in its portrayal of the complexities of male friendship, of the darkest recesses of love, and of the many ways in which the past stakes its claim upon the present, Silent Witness is that rare suspense novel which is far more - the kind of story we have come to expect from Richard North Patterson.

The Final Judgement

A young man is brutally murdered. His distraught girlfriend is the prime suspect. Her aunt, Caroline Masters, about to take up a top job in the US Court of Appeals, decides to defend the young woman in the murder trial. But this will be Caroline's first contact with her family in almost twenty years, and as she prepares the case and goes through the trial, long forgotten secrets re-surface, pitting Caroline against not only the police and prosecution, but also against her father (a retired judge), her sister and the memory of her young self when she, too, lost a boyfriend in suspicious circumstances. The Final Judgement is a powerful, poignant, page-turning legal thriller that confirms Richard North Patterson as among the very best writers in the bookselling area.

Richard North Patterson

The fluidity of his writing, his superb characterisation and intricate plot combine to ensure a compulsive read

Patterson is a fluid prose writer clearly at his best in the taut courtroom scenes... Eyes of a Child is a gripping story... a well crafted book that deserves to do well and almost certainly will

Chris Paget's well ordered world is blown apart by his love for his assistant, Terri, in the sequel to Degree of Guilt. Terri's ex husband, Ricky, is determined to destroy them both and instigates a child custody battle for Terri's four-year old daughter, accusing Terri of neglect and Paget's teenage son of sexual molestation. Then Ricky is murdered and Paget finds himself the principle suspect, on trial for his life. Eyes of a Child demonstrates why North Patterson is an international bestselling author. The pace is superb, the court room scenes unsurpassable, but most importantly the compelling characters, particularly Ricky, Terri's cunning and amoral husband, show North Patterson as one of the strongest storytellers writing today.

Richard North Patterson

Praise for Eyes Of A Child

The fluidity of his writing, his superb characterisation and intricate plot combine to ensure a compulsive read

Patterson is a fluid prose writer clearly at his best in the taut courtroom scenes... Eyes of a Child is a gripping story... a well crafted book that deserves to do well and almost certainly will

Books by Richard North Patterson

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