Rating: 
Summary: A tutorial on some heavy issues
Review: First: This book is written on a very liberal slant. If that bothers you, don't read it. The author obviously has an agenda here, but an intelligent reader will glean arguments from both sides of the abortion issue. Secondly, it is not an easy read. The issues it deals with are complex and the author delves into them in some detail. If you are one who wants to hear a comprehensive discourse on the pros and cons of late term abortion, this book will arm you with both arguments. If you consider yourself a liberal politically, this book will stroke you the right way. If you consider yourself conservative, the author's attitude towards your philosophy will irritate and perhaps anger you. All in all, this book is well written, though opinionated...It is probably great for a political science afficionado, but it is not your typical thriller. It may also be too long because of its dense subject matter.
Rating: 
Summary: A PROVOCATIVE & CHILLING PORTRAIT OF THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE
Review: In today's all too "no holds barred" political arena, PRESERVE AND PROTECT crisply illustrates what, unfortunately, we have become as a nation. Today's leaders are are open to any and all probes into one's innermost secrets by special interest groups. If this is not a subtle call for campaign finance reform, IT SHOULD BE!!!! Mr. Patterson managed to write a spellbinding novel....with today's political truths! I could not put it down. The twists of the plot so keenly held my interest and I found myself rooting for "the good guys" to win! This thought provoking depiction of the way we select our leaders is definitely a must read!
Rating:
Summary: More than a legal thriller
Review: A legal thriller at it's core, Protect and Defend is so much more. Richard North Patterson deals with politics, abortion, campaign finances and rights to privacy in public life. Where do we draw the line? When the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court drops dead after administering the oath of office to the newly elected president, Kerry Kilcannon faces the first challenge of his new administration. His vice-president, Ellen Penn, is quick to suggest Caroline Masters for the job. She seems like a good choice as she has never ruled or commented on the subject of abortion. What position could be better than no position? But nothing is simple in Patterson's world and everyone has secrets. While Masters' friend and former clerk, Sara Dash, challenges a federal law requiring parental consent for late term abortion Kilcannon deals with the politics of an evenly divided senate for her approval. And just as everyone has their secrets it seems everyone in the Senate has his agenda. Both Chad Palmer and Mac Gage would like to be their parties nominee for president next time, but at what personal price? As with most legal thrillers, the lawyer's way of saying things can be weighty, but it's worth the effort. Patterson has entered into highly charged emotional issues and the reader will feel it in the end. How far is too far to get what we want? What price is too much to pay? And when we go too far does anyone really win? Richard North Patterson will keep you up at night asking these questions in Protect and Defend. I recommend giving up the sleep.
Rating: 
Summary: enoughs enough
Review: I have read almost all Of RNP's books and have enjoyed them very much. RNP tries as so many today try to do............to make the liberal look saintly, and the conservative the brother of satan. I have had enough with writers, media portraying conservatives as a bunch of red necks...............no more will I buy this left wing garbage!
Rating: 
Summary: PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THIS AT ALL COST
Review: This was my first RNP Book and I must say I found the story a bit boring. I would also say for those of you who are lawyers, this story may make for some,good and interesting reading. There are some big issues in this new political thriller, such as abortion, the right to privacy, the politics of scandal, special interest groups and etc. What really follows here,is a constructed effort to debate on late term abortion in the courts and the political arena. This story is a thinking person's novel with total concentration here. The story starts out fast and ends up a struggle to finish. I was told that Degree of Guilt by RNP was a better read. You will be hooked on his writing style, but this story was not enough for a rating of 4 to 5. But a 3 rating is good enough for me to give one of RNP older books a try. Tripp
Rating:
Summary: 50 Percent Boring
Review: Too wordy. Too long. No suspense.
Rating:
Summary: Protect and Defend What?
Review: I am a loyal Richard North Patterson reader, but he has lost me here. This book is nothing more than a left wing diatribe. He puts forth no effort to show the opposing side in any kind of favorable light. For the same reason, I put aside the new Clancy book because it was a right wing diatribe! Defenders of Patterson will say that he took the extreme view as an artistic tool or was playing devils advocate. The degree to which he goes to paint everything republican and conservative as jaded and sinister belies that argument. It's too bad he didn't take some very intriguing issues and paint them with a broader brush. He could have created a truly evocative work. As it is it's just tripe. One reviewer noted the extensive research and the impressive acknowledgements. Look closely at those acknowledgements and you will see clearly where his point of view is located Sadly he is protecting and defending a one-sided point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and Thought-Provoking
Review: I've never before read anything by Richard North Patterrson, and I'd always assumed that he pumped out generic and forgettable thrillers. "Protect and Defend," however, is a much more interesting novel that I would have anticipated, and it is also a very exciting, page-turner. Not to say that the book is without its faults; it has those, and quite a few of them too, but even the faults are interesting, and Patterson has done a remarkably effective job of putting together a novel that is as much fun to talk about as it is to read. At the heart of the novel is nomination of a new Supreme Court Chief Justice by a newly-inaugurated Democratic president. The nominee, Caroline Masters, finds herself in the thick of both a controversial abortion case that may overturn a congressional law designed to prevent minors from aborting fetuses without parental consent. She also finds herself in the middle of one of those merciless nomination hearings in the Senate in which the nominee has no chance of escaping un-bloodied. In Master's case, the personal inquiries by the opposition are particularly frightening as she has a secret in her past she is desperate to keep private. Lots of political wheeling and dealing, scheming and skullduggery follows, and it is great fun to watch the behind-the-scenes action. Moreover, the abortion trial presents in wonderful detail the heart of the controversy about legislating abortion, and the issues presented by both sides are clear, ethically compelling, and provocative. I do have two complaints about the novel, however. First, Patterson clearly comes down on the side of abortion rights. He seems to believe that the issue is too ethically fraught to be legislated fairly, and while I happen to agree with that position, I felt that he should have presented the opposing side more fairly than he did. If I were adamantly against abortion, I think I would have found "Protect and Defend" infuriating. Yes, there are caring people on the right-to-life side who genuinely believe that life begins with conception and abortion is murder.... Meanwhile, President Kilcannon is a Democrat's fantasy: ... who holds fast to his principals and will do what he believes best for the country regardless of the consequences to himself. True, this saintly president does have a powerful Republican counterpart of equal moral rectitude, but with all of these halos bumping into each other, I found the verisimilitude of the novel beginning to wane. My other complain, about which I will be a bit more vague out of courtesy to people who have not yet read the novel, is that the ending depends upon some very novel-like rather than life-like events. Patterson seemed to want to put together a very realistic political novel, and I could not but wish that the resolution of the plot be as authentic as his set up. Like the film, "The Contender," the climax of this novel ultimately hinges upon genre-born surprise and excitement. And while I did tear furiously through the final pages of the novel to see what would happen, in the end, I also felt cheated by the flash and the glitz. These issues mar an otherwise wonderful reading experience, but they in no way detract from the strength with which I would recommend "Protect and Defend." If anything, they add to what makes the book so interesting to talk about. And if all mainstream thrillers were this through-provoking, the world would be far better off.
Rating:
Summary: protect and defend
Review: Although I've appreciated Patterson's many previous works, and am impressed that he consulted many experts for research on this novel, including Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barbara Boxer and Bob Dole, I dissent from the accolades of Amazon's other reiewers. I found this book to be mired in redundant details ad nauseum, with a formulaic plot that led to the obvious conclusions. Patterson, apparently felt compelled to put every iota of the information he gleamed about his various controversial and complex investigations into the book. The characters seemed to be cardboard stereotypes and the novel could have eliminated about 200 pages and perhaps been an engaging story. I have to wonder if CNN paid Patterson for the magnanimous publicity it received.
Rating:
Summary: PROTECT AND DEFEND -- IF YOU HAVE THE "MONEY" BEHIND YOU
Review: Richard North Patterson is one of my favorite authors in this genre and Degree of Guilt, Eyes of the Child and The Final Judgement will go down as three of my favorite books of all time. Bearing all this in mind and knowing that Caroline Masters (who appeared in all three of the aforementioned books) was one of the featured main characters in his newest book, Protect and Defend, I anxiously awaited its arrival in the bookstores. So you can imagine how hard it is for me not to give this book a five star rating. I'm struggling to give it 4 stars and will do so only because Patterson is a talented author and, in my eyes, can't tell a bad story. My feeling is that if you weren't sick of hearing about the abortion issue on every politician's lips before, you will certainly be sick of it after reading this book. There were so many times during this reading that I said, "all right already -- I get the picture." Don't get me wrong -- I am making no political statement here pro or con. This book deftly gives you both sides of the issue brilliantly and with duly noted extensive research on the part of the author. I just felt there were at least 200 unnecessary pages in this 549 page book and, after awhile, I felt I was being lectured. The book begins with Kerry Kilcannon's inauguration, a character already featured in previous RNP books. By the slimmest of margins (sound familiar), he has finally been elected President of the United States. Of course, his excitement of the day is short-lived as the present Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has a sudden stroke and dies at the ceremony leaving an opening that President Kilcannon must now fill. He nominates Caroline Masters, a judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Fans of Patterson, who have already read The Final Judgement, will know that her rise to the Circuit Court was no easy task and also that she has some secrets in her past that could come to light with the scrutinizing that the nominating committee will oversee. This nomination is an important one because it cold swing the vote in an already closely divided Supreme Court. The one thing in her favor is that she has never come up against any abortion issues so her views are her own -- PRIVATE -- or is there such a word in politics? Just as her nomination is coming to the forefront, Sarah Dash, an ex law clerk of Masters, has agreed to take on the case of a 15 year old girl who wants a late term abortion but her parents won't allow it for religious, moral and political reasons. If Caroline Masters wasn't involved in a case having to do with abortion before, she will be in the thick of it right now. This book actually made me sick of politics and sick of the hypocrisy of the whole thing. It is full of characters who are spouting one belief yet are doing something totally against their beliefs in the background -- come to think of it, this book could have been non-fiction. The one thing that I did come away with after reading this book was how very important these Supreme Court nominations really are and how the balance of power can shift by just one appointment. Unfortunately, it also showed me the power behind some of the lobbyists who use politicians as puppets. The moral of this story is -- MONEY TALKS -- a very sad moral to this reader.
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