No Safe Place
“MOVES FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET …
[A] harrowing story of political skullduggery … Expertly moving back and forth between Kerry Kilcannon’s uncertain present and his tortured past, Patterson also puts forth some provocative questions regarding such issues as gun control, abortion, race, and campaign finance.”
—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“An important and impressive work of fiction … It is difficult to contain my enthusiasm for what is not only a great read but a fine and uncannily relevant novel…. Kilcannon is such a fully realized character, so sympathetic yet self-destructive, that we care about him deeply; you may find yourself wanting to vote for him…. The abortion issue is dealt with not only as an abstract political football but is literally brought home to the characters and the reader; we are forced to search ourselves or put the book down. Both are extremely difficult to do…. I envy those of you who are about to go out, buy it, and read it.”
—
The San Diego Union-Tribune
“The most realistic backstage look at a Presidential campaign since
Primary Colors
.”
—
Los Angeles Times
“Riveting … Highly entertaining … Patterson scores big.”
—
Chicago Tribune
“
NO SAFE PLACE
IS A NOVEL OF IDEAS…. A RELENTLESS PACE …
Patterson infuses the book with moral and political questions.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Politics can be pulp for great fiction…. A primary has never been so colorful…. Patterson gets the nuances just right—the clubby, jaded press corps; the calculating advisers; the naive volunteers.”
—
People
“Powerful … The book oozes politics: the cynicism, the pandering, the backstabbing, the compromises. Patterson has captured the energy and feel of a campaign with the astuteness of someone who’s been there.”
—
San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle
“[The] novel’s political speeches are brilliant and moving.”
—
The Washington Post
“Every element of the primary rings true, from strategy sessions and travel logistics to the decisions that go into mounting TV ads and choosing who rides in which limousine.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“SUSPENSEFUL.”—
New York Newsday
“In the course of more than five hundred pages that fly by easily, Patterson deals directly with the touchy issues of abortion while simultaneously exposing the cold underbelly of politics and letting true romance come to a boil…. With a wide cast of supporting characters and a sure sense of purpose he builds his novel like a house and then makes sure the people in it come alive.”
—
Detroit New/Free Press
“This author has a wonderful ability to develop characters that you can visualize, love, hate, and sympathize with….
No Safe Place
will keep you up nights because you can’t find a good stopping place.”
—
Ft. Worth Star Telegram
“The story moves with hard-driving, character-rich realism, and the stuff along the campaign trail—the tensions, dynamics, strategy, etcetera—rolls like a well-oiled wheel.”
—
New York Daily News
“A searing look at the inside of Presidential politics.”
—
Rocky Mountain News
“HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“This is a well-crafted novel that is as concerned with the tapestry in the political shadows as with the posturing and scheming in the foreground. Besides that, it’s compelling, with a climactic surprise that certainly fooled this reader…. A novel with relentless action, to be sure, but with a heart as well.”
—
Houston Chronicle
“[A] searing portrait …
No Safe Place
is a perceptive, intelligent work about national campaign politics. It is also a lucid, penetrating study of the psychological development of a political leader.”
—
Hartford Courant
“[Patterson] works with characters, masterfully providing intimate sketches of each character’s background until empathy is established on all sides.”
—
Newark Star Ledger
“A SURE-FIRE HIT …
The narrative quickly moves along, drawing you into the behind-the-scenes politics of running for President…. Patterson [is] a proven master of intrigue.”
—
Providence Sunday Journal
“[A] compelling tale of political intrigue … Patterson gives readers an unusually insightful look into the ethical challenges facing journalists and politicians around issues of personal privacy and professional standards.”
—
San Jose Mercury News
“An intricate and riveting tale of presidential politics and the forces that influence it … A story that keeps the reader in suspense to the end … His development of characters and their relationships makes them people the reader really cares about. You feel their joy and pain, their friendship—and their love…. Patterson proves himself an eloquent speechwriter as well as novelist. Some of the speeches given by the candidate are masterpieces.”
—
Topeka Capital-Journal
“A FIRST-RATE POLITICAL THRILLER … A FABLE FOR OUR TIMES.”
—
American Way
“A page-turner … The suspense of
No Safe Place
is generated by the high-stakes game of presidential politics.”
—
Maxim
“A complex and flawless story that is a joy to read. This is a first-class political novel.”
—
Roanoke Times and World News
“Patterson fills his story with well-drawn characters and heats it to the pressure point. The political strategy meetings … have all the excitement and cruelty of a flash flood.”
—
Tulsa World
“[A] passionate and revealing political thriller of great scope.”
—
The Dallas Morning News
“The season’s political thriller … Fascinating.”
—
The Tampa Tribune
“MASTERFUL … A COMPELLING READ.”
—
The Denver Post
“Patterson … burrows into the interior world of politics. The results are as gripping as they are thoughtful.”
—
Salon
“Intelligent, suspenseful, entertaining.”
—
The Sunday Oklahoman
“Lively and absorbing … Compelling characters, realistic dialogue, and thought-provoking political debate on issues ranging from abortion and gun control to campaign reform and the role of the media.”
—
Columbus Dispatch
“
No Safe Place
grips the reader from the first page to the last…. The novel does Patterson proud.”
—
Wisconsin State Journal
By Richard North Patterson
Published by Ballantine Books
THE LASKO TANGENT THE
OUTSIDE MAN ESCAPE THE
NIGHT PRIVATE SCREENING
DEGREE OF GUILT EYES OF
A CHILD THE FINAL
JUDGMENT SILENT
WITNESS NO SAFE PLACE
DARK LADY PROTECT AND
DEFEND
Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.
For Chase
Our youngest son
In 1996, having grounded four bestselling novels in the drama of the courtroom, I set out to capture the ultimate drama: the physical and moral risk of a complex man’s insurgent campaign for President, where no moment is private, and every moment could be his last—where there is truly “no safe place.”
In Kerry Kilcannon, I found the perfect protagonist: an imperfect man who conceals his private wounds beneath the charisma, passion, and daring that may either bring him to the presidency, or to ruin. In the six crucial days depicted in
No Safe Place
, the reader watches him face the hatred and adulation of a divided country; the secret love which could end his career; the opponent who means to bring him down; and the fanatic who plans to kill him—and learns how Kerry became who he is, and why he makes his fateful choices.
No Safe Place
portrays a challenge so daunting that only five living Americans have mastered it. To write it, I spent countless days with a President and presidential candidates, the reporters who scrutinized them, the consultants who advised them, and the Secret Service agents who protected them—all to capture what it takes to do what few even consider doing, and the price Kerry pays for doing it. I began this journey simply to assure absolute authenticity; by the end, it had redirected my life and my career, immersing me in the major issues of our times even as I resolved to make readers feel, in the most exciting and visceral way, what it’s like to be President in a divisive and
dangerous time.
This journey continues in
Protect and Defend
and, coming in fall 2003,
Balance of Power
. But
No Safe Place
is where Kerry Kilcannon and
I
found out what we wanted. I did my best to make the trip as compelling for you as it was for me, and only hope that, in the end, I succeeded.
—R
ICHARD
N
ORTH
P
ATTERSON
Martha’s Vineyard
September 1, 2003
The Campaign
At eight in the morning of his last day in Boston, Sean Burke paced out tight circles on the corner of Kenmore Square, waiting for the abortionist, a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun hidden in the inside pocket of his army jacket.
Sean knew his enemy from the demonstrations—a slight man with brown wisps of hair and hollow cheekbones, gray soulless eyes that ignored the pickets even when they cried out,
“Don’t kill me, Mommy and Daddy,”
in the imagined voice of a fetus. Part of Sean prayed for him to come; that other part, frightened and irresolute, hoped he would not. He encouraged himself by imagining the faces of the children he would save.
He passed forty minutes this way. With each moment, Sean felt more anxious.
And then the man was there, emerging from the subway.
The abortionist’s hands were in his coat pockets. His eyes focused on the sidewalk, and his breaths became thin puffs in the surprising chill of a bright April day. He did not notice Sean.
Sean swallowed. His throat was dry, his mouth sour, the pit of his stomach clenched and raw. Clumsily, he reached a gloved hand into his left pocket and popped the last antacid pill into his mouth, teeth grinding it to chalk.
Dr. Bowe disappeared inside the building.
It was an old brownstone hotel, converted to offices for doctors, dentists, milliners, discount jewelers; passing through the double glass doors, a pregnant woman could be shopping for a necklace, not seeking an accomplice to help murder her unborn child. Sean knew only that the offices were on the first floor: because of a court order, pickets were required to stay
outside and keep the walkway clear. The red carpet, their leader, Paul Terris,
had named it. But neither Paul’s exhortations nor all their protests had stopped the flow of blood.
Yet Sean stood there, still afraid. The chalk in his mouth tasted bitter.
If Sean acted, he would have to leave all he knew behind: the comfort of the church where he served as caretaker; the room above the parish offices, his home for three years now; the compassion of Father Brian Shaw, who praised his work and worried, in his soft-voiced way, about Sean’s “intensity.” In the newspapers and on television, in the streets and the bars of Charlestown, they would call Sean a murderer.