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by: Richard North Patterson
List Price: $25.95Amazon.com's Price: $19.72 You Save: $6.23 (24%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
Binding: Audio Cassette
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780739301289
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
ISBN: 0739301284
Label: Random House Audio
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
Number Of Items: 4
Publication Date: October 14, 2003
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: October 14, 2003
Sales Rank: 2139805
Studio: Random House Audio
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Richard North Patterson’s masterful portrayals of law and politics at the apex of power have made him one of our most important writers of popular fiction. Combining a compelling narrative, exhaustive research, and a sophisticated grasp of contemporary society, his bestselling novels bring explosive social problems to vivid life through characters who are richly imagined and intensely real. Now in Balance of Power Patterson confronts one of America’s most inflammatory issues–the terrible toll of gun violence.
President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancée, television journalist Lara Costello, have at last decided to marry. But their wedding is followed by a massacre of innocents in a lethal burst of gunfire, challenging their marriage and his presidency in ways so shattering and indelibly personal that Kilcannon vows to eradicate gun violence and crush the most powerful lobby in Washington–the Sons of the Second Amendment (SSA).
Allied with the President’s most determined rival, the resourceful and relentless Senate Majority Leader Frank Fasano, the SSA declares all-out war on Kerry Kilcannon, deploying its arsenal of money, intimidation, and secret dealings to eviscerate Kilcannon’s crusade–and, it hopes, destroy his presidency. This ignites a high-stakes game of politics and legal maneuvering in the Senate, the courtroom, and across the country, which the charismatic but untested young President is determined to win at any cost. But in the incendiary clash over gun violence and gun rights, the cost to both Kilcannons may be even higher than he imagined.
And others in the crossfire may also pay the price: the idealistic lawyer who has taken on the gun industry; the embattled CEO of America’s leading gun maker; the war-hero senator caught between conflicting ambitions; the female senator whose career is at risk; and the grief-stricken young woman fighting to emerge from the shadow of her sister, the First Lady.
The insidious ways money corrodes democracy and corrupts elected officials . . . the visceral debate between gun-rights and gun-control advocates . . . the bitter legal conflict between gun companies and the victims of gun violence . . . a ratings-driven media that both manipulates and is manipulated–Richard North Patterson weaves these engrossing themes into an epic novel that moves us with its force, passion, and authority.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Political Claptrap
I picked this book at random from the library shelf and it only took me 30 pages to realize this was some liberal, gun-hating author's attempt at political commentary. It is to fiction what NPR is to news - completely biased. I'm tempted to renew it, just to keep it off the library shelf for as long as possible. Oh well, at least it's in the Fiction aisle, where it belongs.
Rating:  - "Balance of Power" is not balanced
According to Patterson, 20% of US citizens like guns, 20% dislike guns, and 60% are somewhere in the middle, providing the "balance of power". The 20% that like guns will dislike this book, and the 20% that dislike guns will like this book. The other 60% are likely to move a bit closer to disliking guns by reading this book. But the reader should be mindful of the fact that Patterson is controlling both sides of the gun debate inside the covers of his book. Clearly, he is anti-gun and believes ... Read More
Rating: - Simplistic Good Versus Evil
Here's my take on Balance of Power: it's a political fantasy for liberals. It's designed to take liberals to an imaginary land where they can cheer a heroic president who triumphs over evil. In this case, the good president fights to pass new gun-control laws that will magically stop crazed killers with big guns from shooting innocent children, while armies of evil goblins -- I mean, bad conservatives and the wicked gun lobby -- try to stop him.
Now, there's nothing wrong with a good fantasy. ... Read More
Rating: - Intellectually Dishonest
Full disclosure here: I am an unabashed champion of the Second Amendment who views guns as our most important right.
That said, my problem is not that Patterson wrote a novel to promote an antigun agenda--after all, I did the same thing for the other side (the novel "Unintended Consequences".)
My complaint with Balance Of Power is that Patterson needed to use physical impossibilities to make his case. In his story, the "evil" gun in question that he wants banned is obviously a handgun, ... Read More
Rating:  - An Admirable Effort at an Intractable Subject
This is an insider's account of politics in Washington, with the most realistic dialogue and scenes I've ever encountered in a novel. Not a thriller, but an easy read that kept me intrigued and turning the pages (nearly 800 of them!).
Author Patterson deserves a lot of credit for writing a novel so well researched that he never has to fall back on artistic license to keep the plot moving; that is, there are no "yeah, sure" moments (John Grisham, take note!). He has a detailed knowledge of law that ... Read More
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