A compelling new novel from Richard North Patterson- a major departure and that confirms his place among the most important popular novelists at work today.<br><br>A newly elected president faces the unexpected chance to nominate a new chief justice of the Supreme Court.  His first choice is a nationally respected Court of Appeals judge a woman whose nomination faces two serious obstacles: a long-held personal secret; and the prospect that a volatile abortion case- a trial pitting a 15-year-old girl against her pro-life parents- will come before the court.  And the Senate majority leader is determined to thwart the president's nomination for reasons that cross the boundary between the political and the personal.<br><br>As these stories intertwine building in complexity and suspense Patterson gives us the resounding clash of competing ambitions between the president and the majority leader; the equally momentous collision of science and culture in the courtroom; and in an unprecedented novelistic depiction of the legal process from the perspective of the judge rather than the lawyers a revelation of both how the judicial system works and how it intersects with politics for better or for worse.<br><br><i>PROTECT AND DEFEND</i> is a triumph- the definitive novel of politics and law at the dawn of the 21st century.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>