It is the year 2000. Youthful Senator Kerry Kilcannon is surprising everyone with his strength in the presidential primaries. But California will be the most important, and most meaningful, race: twelve years earlier, Kerry's older brother James was assassinated in California during his own run for the presidential nomination. Now, unwillingly, Kerry bears his brother's political legacy, and he cannot avoid the echoes of James's murder. But he has even more concrete problems. He has stumbled in his advocacy of abortion rights and stands to lose more than just votes: behind the scenes a severely damaging secret concerning his past is about to be published. And deeper behind the scenes, Kerry has attracted the attention of a man who has already killed in a protest against abortion and is looking for the most visible arena in which to make his final statement.

With rare authenticity, Patterson takes us to the heart of highstakes presidential politics and -- displaying the same mastery of psychological detail and suspense that has marked his previous best-sellers -- tells a story of extraordinary originality in which public image and private life are forced into an incendiary and far-reaching collision.