BALANCE OF POWER

Power politics, gun control issues, and courtroom drama play out in Richard North Patterson's latest thriller. The plot revolves around a strong-minded first lady, Lara Costello, whose family is destroyed in a murderous assault. Patricia Kalember does a good job with the president's wife and with a brave female lawyer who runs afoul of the gun lobby, but the story is also full of male politicians and lawyers. Kalember fails to bring the men off convincingly, so listeners hear them as much the same. Neither plot nor narration have much inventiveness, but fans of power struggles and backroom deals will hardly notice. R.F.W. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 04]