Balance of Power

President Kerry Kilcannon and his fiancee, 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 perosnal 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 Senat Majority Leader Grank Fasano, the SSA declares all-out war on Kerry Kilcannon. This ignites a highstakes 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. 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.