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BALANCE OF POWER
by Richard North Patterson
Macmillan, October 2003
624 pages
17.99GBP
ISBN: 0333908554


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

In the third part of the Kerry Kilcannon trilogy, Richard North Patterson creates another huge fight for his President. Shortly after his wedding to Lara Costello, members of the President's new family are brutally gunned down by Kilcannon's abusive brother-in-law. This leads him and his wife into a battle against the USA's gun culture and the powerful gun lobby. Can Kilcannon win his fight, or is this one battle too far?

Richard North Patterson's previous Kilcannon novels have been excellent and this one is no exception. The President and his wife are superb characters. They feel real, friendly and genuine, just as much as his opponents, such as Fasano or Gage, evoke distaste or even disgust. North Patterson does create an alarming array of characters, so many that it requires a dramatis personae at the beginning, but you eventually become used to them.

The main problem in the novel is its sheer complexity. The book boasts 624 pages and whilst a lot of the novel is told through dialogue, the basic political institutions require a lot of concentration to understand, particularly if you are approaching the novel from a non-American standpoint. North Patterson discusses the role of the Congress, the Senate, the gun lobby, campaign financing, filibusters and much, much more. At times, the sheer wealth of political detail and intrigue can bog the reader down, but if you can get through this, there is a tight, well-crafted novel here.

It appears that this may be the end of the Kilcannon series, as North Patterson envisaged it as a trilogy. If this is to be the case, it is a great shame. Kilcannon seems to have a lot of potential that could be even further developed, but if not, it will be interesting to see where North Patterson goes from here. Before this trilogy, he wrote courtroom thrillers. It could well be just as enjoyable to see a return to them, since the courtroom element in this novel, whilst minor compared to PROTECT AND DEFEND, works excellently.

It is clear that institutions and people referred to in BALANCE OF POWER have to be based on real people. North Patterson declares that he used parts of real speeches from the NRA in the book. For someone outside of the USA, particularly in a country that has much tighter gun laws, the novel paints a terrifying picture of society where the gun lobby and the money it pours into the main political parties is king.

Overall, this is an excellent novel and any fans of the political or legal thriller have an enormous amount to get their teeth into. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Luke Croll, December 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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