No Safe Place: A Novel (Random House Large Print) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Richard North Patterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 1998 | Series: Random House Large Print

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In his first book since the national best-seller Silent Witness, 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The confident narration of actress Patricia Kalember lends an appropriate polish to this political thriller built around a beleaguered senator's presidential run. "There's still a lot to do," the candidate declares. "And together we will do it." Well, maybe, if he can unburden himself of some hefty personal baggage, outlast a tenacious reporter who smells blood, and dodge a would-be assassin who's milling in the crowds.

Kalember switches gracefully between narrative and dialogue as this five-hour abridged version reveals some all-too-familiar political maneuverings that ratchet ever higher, along with the rising sense of danger. (Running time: five hours, four cassettes) --George Laney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Patterson (The Final Judgment; Silent Witness; etc.) is a skilled fabricator of courtroom dramas who here ventures well beyond his usual subject matter with mixed but still highly entertaining results. His protagonist, Kerry Kilcannon, is a young, somewhat Kennedy-esque senator whose older brother was assassinated during his campaign for the presidential nomination. Reluctantly stepping into his shoes, Kerry becomes fired by idealism and decides to seek the presidency himself. There is a dark secret in his past, however, involving an affair with Lara, a beautiful reporter for the New York Times (yes, she was named after the heroine in Dr. Zhivago). Its disclosure could sink his carefully weighed position on abortion, and his candidacy to boot. Also in his past was a boy whom Kerry, as a young lawyer, saved from a murderous father and who now, paradoxically, wants to kill candidate Kerry on behalf of the pro-lifers. These strands are all woven together in a series of flashbacks in the course of a few days during the vital California primary, and Patterson, old pro that he is, milks the tension for all it's worth. The political detail is authentic, although Kerry's positions are the kind you always hope in vain a politician will take while his smooth opponent, the vapid incumbent veep, is a thoroughly believable contemporary villain. But Patterson is really only playing with political ideas, though he does so intelligently enough. The cliched romantic writing (lobster cooked on the beach on Martha's Vineyard, many sighs and silences) and the trite melodrama of the young assassin show where the heart of the narrative really lies?not that the glossy approach will deter a large readership. 400,000 first printing; Literary Guild main selection; Random House audio and large print editions.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 626 pages
• Publisher: Random House Large Print (August 22, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375702962
• ISBN-13: 978-0375702969
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,701,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON is the author of The Spire, Eclipse and fourteen other bestselling and critically acclaimed novels. Formerly a trial lawyer, he was the SEC liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor and has served on the boards of several Washington advocacy groups. He lives in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Dr. Nancy Clair.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What? No more "lawyer books"?, July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: No Safe Place (Mass Market Paperback)

For years, Patterson has written courtroom dramas that are like Grisham but just a bit deeper and not as region-bound. With Dymo-tape cover designs to boot. He apparently run out of Dymo tape for his dispenser one book back, and maybe he's sensing that the lawyer-book market has peaked. So he's going for political drama, and I have to say he's as good as any of them, and BETTER than Tom Clancy was in "Executive Orders" (which was a bit of a hybrid). What we have here is not an election campaign story, it's a nomination campaign story, so we don't get to see who gets elected. Our hero is Kerry Kilcannon, kid brother of "Private Screening's" James Kilcannon, following in his big brother's footsteps twelve years later. It's too much of a temptation to compare the two brothers to the Kennedys, so please try to resist, okay? You'll deprive yourself of a pretty decent story. There's a bit of lawyer stuff in flashbacks to Kerry's earlier career as a prosecutor crusading for abused children and their mothers. You see, he hadn't originally planned to be a politician, but he's successfully pressured into it by friends. He loses his wife in the process (maybe she's thinking of what happened to her brother-in-law), draws the ire of the far right on gun control, gains the attention of an assassin over the abortion issue, rekindles an old flame with a newscaster whose inability to be objective about him handicaps her reporting (neither of them have totally faced the fact that they still hold feelings for each other). And what's worse, he's got the current Vice President to run against--a guy he'd campaign FOR if it weren't for the fact that the Veep's a bit too politically elastic to be much of a statesman. So not only has Patterson apparently decided to switch genres, he's chosen to write about a different stage of the electoral process--the party nominations. Interesting.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There'll Never Be a Candidate Like Kerry Kilcannon, November 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: No Safe Place (Hardcover)

Fans of Richard North Patterson, be ye warned. "No Safe Place" is not a legal fiction novel like his more recent novels ("Silent Witness", "Final Judgment"). But what Patterson does so well for that genre, he masterfully morphs to the campaign trail. Like his previous books, much of the character and plot exposition of "No Safe Place" is told in flashback. The "present day" portion takes place the week before the decisive California primary for the Democratic Presidential candidacy. Senator Kerry Kilcannon's run for the Rose Garden is placed in jeopardy by the threatened disclosure of illegally obtained information of an earlier extramarital affair, and the abortion that went with it, and his team of spin doctors must labor to soft soap the news in advance.

Patterson makes no real effort to disguise the analogies between Senator Kerry Kilcannon -- the upstart former-prosecutor thrust into the political limelight after the assassination of his older brother during his campaign for the same spot eight years prior -- and the late Bobby Kennedy. Or the thinly veiled comparison between Dick Mason -- the Vice President with campaign finance issues seeking to succeed his two-term Democrat predecessor -- with Veep Al Gore. (Mason, like his alter-ego, is so wooden even Geppetto and the Blue Fairy could never turn him into "a real boy".) To this Patterson adds such "ripped-from-the-headlines" issues such as abortion clinic murders, extramarital political peccadillos, well-placed press leaks, and "public figures versus private lives". The result is a stimulating, thought-provoking novel of possibly prophetic proportions.

The book has a number of interesting characters which I especially liked, particularly Liam Dunn, Kerry's well-mannered mentor. I really liked Patterson's portrayal of the behind-the-scenes repore among the members of the Press Corps.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book, I find, comes from Mr. Patterson's Acknowledgments. Patterson lists as two of his primary sources former President and First Lady George and Barbara Bush. This is somewhat surprising considering the book's overall liberal leanings.

All in all, it would be a misnomer to call this book a thriller. It doesn't take much thought to figure out what will ultimately transpire in the end. But, as with most of Patterson's books, it's the getting there that's the fun part.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Now's the best time to read it..., March 9, 2000

By 

Dominic Buschi - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Safe Place (Mass Market Paperback)

Good fun reading a novel about a senator fighting through the preliminaries to become presidential candidate for his party and comparing it to the real-life saga of Bush v. Cain!

During the first 100 pages I thought, so old-fashioned: Focus on one character (Kerry Kilcannon) and provide flash-backs to his childhood (have you noticed, every Irish male at that stage is an alcoholic and a wifebasher!) and formative years, for the reader to understand the motivation behind every decision he makes, every action he takes in his later life.

And then the depiction of his loveaffair with Lara: Just didn't seem like end of twentieth century, too romantic to be true.

I don't understand why the author had to throw in the storyline of the fanatical pro-lifer, intent on killing Kilcannon. I didn't think it did anything to enhance the suspense. Maybe because of the twist in the end...

But afterwards, the author concentrated more on campaign and less on Kilcannon and that's where the book gained momentum: Journalists hunting for a story that could end Kilcannons race; Preparations for a TV debate with the other contestant; how to get the pro-choice votes; how to provide security for the candidate; the relation between Dick Mason (the incumbent Vice President who of course wants the Precidency) and Kilcannon.