Richard North Patterson uses his mastery of characterization and suspense to give us a story of startling realism and originality--an extraordinary novel of presidential politics.

In the year 2000, Senator Kerry Kilcannon's insurgent campaign against Vice President Dick Mason has come down to the last seven days--the time remaining until the California presidential primary. Whoever wins in California is likely to win the Democratic nomination, a prize that the Vice President is determined to deny Kerry at any cost. And for all the votes and enthusiasm his passion and personal magnetism have gained him, Kerry's problems are formidable.

He is haunted by the tragedy of his older brother, James, a presidential candidate who was assassinated in California twelve years earlier. Kerry has stumbled in his advocacy of abortion rights, and a right-to-life fanatic has pushed this explosive issue to the forefront by murdering three people at a women's clinic. In addition, a journalist for a national newsmagazine is striving to verify the lethal story that, two years ago, while still married, Kerry had a secret love affair with Lara Costello, a reporter assigned to him on Capitol Hill. And now, even more threatening, Kerry is being stalked by the abortion-clinic murderer himself.

This narrative is seamlessly interwoven with scenes from Kerry's past: his youth as the son of a drunken and abusive father; his self-image as the less-gifted younger brother of a brilliant yet distant senator; his reluctant ascension to his brother's place; his poignant romance with Lara Costello. And when Lara is ordered against her will to cover Kerry in California, he is forced once more to evaluate his life, and the terrible cost of his ambition to become President of the United States.

With rare authenticity, Richard North Patterson depicts the world of high-stakes presidential politics on the verge of an explosion that is as dramatic as it is thought-provoking. But No Safe Place is also a story of people at their best and at their worst: their passions, their ideals, their flaws. A novel that will hold the reader enthralled from the first to the last sentence.

Prologue: The Campaign

April, the year 2000

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.

Let God be his judge, then. God and the children.

But Sean stood frozen, a slender man, with lank black hair and pale-blue eyes. Alone, as he had felt almost all his life, Sean watched the random pageant of the city pass him by: tardy workers rushing from the subway; cars honking; students heading for Boston University; an Asian nanny with a plaid wool scarf at her throat, pushing a baby in a blue carriage. They did not notice him and would not have understood had they known.

Then he saw her--a young woman in a wool coat, knit cap pulled tight over her curly red hair, her face more Irish than Sean's own. He could imagine her sitting next to him in school.

Pausing on the sidewalk, she gazed at the double glass doors beneath the letters that spelled "Kenmore Building." Sean could feel her reluctance as intensely as he felt his own.

She was there for the abortionist, Sean was certain. Her back to Sean, she seemed barely to move. In his mind they were coupled: if she did not enter, perhaps Sean would grant the clinic a reprieve. Just for today.

Please, he murmured, save your baby. He prayed she was not one of them.

With a shrug, so small that Sean perhaps imagined it, the young woman walked toward the door.

Sean felt the anger come. If she...