Excellent reading...has a real twist at the end...keeps one guessing all the way through.

The nation is stunned silent when presidential hopeful James Kilcannon is shot dead, point'blank, while sharing the stage at a benefit concert with his rock-star girlfriend, Stacy Tarrant. Fiercely independent attorney Tony Lord defends the assassin in a sensational trial that erupts into the media event of the decade. But the most shocking gambit ever witnessed in the history of television has yet to unfold.

As America watches, a mysterious and ruthless figure known only as Phoenix takes to the airwaves in the ultimate act of high-tech terror. Holding the wife of a wealthy newspaper mogul and Stacy's manager hostage. Phoenix mounts a televised trial of his own, in which Stacy Tarrant and Tony Lord are helpless defendants, millions of viewers are jurors, and- unless his chilling demands are met - Phoenix is the unstoppable executioner.....

Presidential hopeful James Kilcannon is shot dead. Tony Lord defends the assassin. Rock star Stacy Tarrant and her manager are kidnapped by an unknown person calling himself Phoenix. Phoenix puts Stacy and Tony on trial via the airwaves. This is a really great book.

A riveting mixture of politics, the media and a terrorist named Phoenix who stages his own televised trial.

An excellent page turner. A presidential hopeful is killed while on the stage with his girlfriend, a singer. From that moment the reader races through book attempting to discover the culprit. The climax is completely unexpected.

When a Vietnam veteran assassinates California's presidential candidate, an intricate plot begins to unfold. A terror ist who styles himself the Phoenix kid naps two people and captures prime time television to air his demands. Be hind the scenes the assassin's lawyer shuttles among the principals; eventu ally he becomes the reluctant point man in the negotiations with Phoenix. In a shock ending that evokes the sort of nasty secrets exposed by Raymond Chandler, the pieces all come together. Unlike those hardboiled thrillers, though, this book brims with upbeat emotions like true love, loyalty, and courage. Patterson's own background as a trial lawyer gives the dialogue in his fourth novel a realistic thrust-and- parry rhythm. There are really two sto ries here, for along with the thriller is a restrained and taut tale of one U.S. sol dier whose conduct in the war haunts him still. Engaging and intelligent, this complex story puts a new gloss on the terror and troubles of our times.

Another great Richard North Patterson mystery novel.

Patterson, what else needs to be said!

"Thrilling. . . Private Screening succeeds on all counts. It's a footrace of a read, daring you to put it down." - Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Best selling author, great thriller

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