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Richard North Patterson is a lawyer. Experience in his professional life provoked, in 1979, his first novel,Ý The Lasko Tangent. It must have been heartening for the lawyer-cum-writer to have his first thriller win an Edgar Allan Poe Award. Others of his books are Dark Lady, No Safe Place , Degree of Guilt , Silent Witness and Eyes of a Child , some featuring Caroline Masters, one of the main protagonists of this novel, Protect and Defend. By definition a lawyer has to be an accomplished wordsmith, but the use he makes of his talent decides his success in a possible career in fiction. Patterson has amply demonstrated his abilities to maintain a high degree of tension and suspense in all his legal thrillers to date. In this book I found my attention wandering somewhat but fear that was due to my lack of familiarity with the American legal and political system. As an Australian, I was mystified by many of the twists and turns in the recent Presidential election. Probably Americans would find the Australian system equally obscure. The fact that this novel deals with events with which a new American President finds himself confronted had me rather puzzled along the way. One aspect of the novel that I found confusing was the importance placed on the secrets harboured by the respective protagonists. Perhaps I am wrong (this has been known to happen on the odd occasion) but I am inclined to think that Australians would not allow such things to destroy a political career if the candidate were otherwise capable. Perhaps we are a more laid-back nation... or perhaps I am simply naive about such matters. Patterson uncannily predicts a narrow election win by a successful candidate although his winner was a Democrat rather than the real life Republican victor, and by a few thousand rather than the skimpy hundreds win. The successful contestant, Irish American Kerry Kilcannon, finds himself in the uncomfortable position at the end of his inaugural address, of having the Chief Justice die of a stroke, the death possibly hastened by the loathing the Justice felt for the new President. This necessitates President Kerry Kilcannon having to nominate a Chief Justice and he plumps for a woman, heroine of earlier books, Judge Caroline Masters. The tension of the book rests on a case nicely calculated to polarise the emotions of readers since it involves situations about which most people hold firm views. Masters' former law clerk, Sarah Dash is approached at an abortion clinic by pregnant fifteen-year-old Mary Ann Tierney. Sarah has obtained a court order to protect access to the clinic from militants who would seek to deter pregnant women from having abortions. Mary Ann, originally willing to become a mother, has discovered that the fetus she is carrying has hydrocephalus. Not only is it unlikely to live but, if carried to term, will possibly ensure the mother's future infertility. To complicate matters further, the Tierney parents are strongly pro-life. A side-effect of the Tierney case is that it affects the possibility of Caroline Masters' confirmation as Chief Justice. The entire concept, involving as it does such complex primal emotions as concern for life both of a mother and a child, together with the conflicting reactions generated by perceptions of parental rights being challenged by legalistic manoeuvres, is engrossing. Add to the mix the Machiavellian machinations of ruthless politicians willing to overstep all bounds of human decency and integrity and you should have a book that defies the reader to put it down. I know it is only a fault of my own ignorance of the American system that permitted me to find the 546 pages overlong. It would be an unrealistic reader indeed who would not expect to find Judge Caroline Masters in the centre of a future Patterson epic: this book leaves plenty of territory to explore. Editor's note: This review is based on the Australian hardcover edition, published in January 2001,
Reviewed by Denise Wels, July 2001
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