Patterson has three pages of acknowledgments, including ex-president Clinton, President Bush, the United States Senate, the Supreme Court, the legal and medical professions, the military, the prolife groups, the pro-choice movement, the members of which he cites being "dear friends" all. By the time he came to writing the book, there must have been very little to do. The core of the novel deals with a 15-year-old girl's right to have, or not to have, an abortion. Around this admittedly expertly plotted event, much padding is set in place to come up with a very large novel indeed. People from the very top down are sucked into the scenario, from President Kerry Kilcannon and his nominee for chief justice, Caroline Masters, to the girl's longsuffering and upright parents. The subject of abortion has moved from being a moral issue to being a political agenda, and to be fair to Patterson, he sets out no easy solutions to the basic problems. However, for the purposes of bringing his story to a satisfactory conclusion, i.e. the victory of liberalism over the forces of conservatism, he comes up with a rather facile and duckingthe-issue manner of resolving things. The book is at its best in the court room scenes, these being very well done indeed.