Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting
Protect and Defend by Richard North Patterson
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Protect and Defend

$30.00

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Patricia Kalember

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 20 hours 43 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

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.

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.

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.

PROTECT AND DEFEND is a triumph- the definitive novel of politics and law at the dawn of the 21st century.

Richard North Patterson is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 novels, a former chairman of Common Cause, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Formerly a trial lawyer, Patterson served as the US Security and Exchange Commission's liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor. He lives in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Dr. Nancy Clair.

Patricia Kalember studied acting at Indiana University and Temple University after being encouraged by her high-school drama teacher. She finished College with a BA in theater and immediately started acting in major regional and off-Broadway productions. In New York, where she was born, she worked in numerous daytime soaps, commercials, and theatrical events. She received a nomination for the Outer Critics Circle Award for her part in the long-running play The Foreigner.

Richard North Patterson is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 novels, a former chairman of Common Cause, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Formerly a trial lawyer, Patterson served as the US Security and Exchange Commission's liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor. He lives in San Francisco and on Martha's Vineyard with his wife, Dr. Nancy Clair.

Patricia Kalember studied acting at Indiana University and Temple University after being encouraged by her high-school drama teacher. She finished College with a BA in theater and immediately started acting in major regional and off-Broadway productions. In New York, where she was born, she worked in numerous daytime soaps, commercials, and theatrical events. She received a nomination for the Outer Critics Circle Award for her part in the long-running play The Foreigner.

Illustration of person sitting

Shop small, give big!

With credit bundles, you choose the number of credits and your recipient picks their audiobooks—all in support of local bookstores.

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Reviews

"PROTECT AND DEFEND IS A WINNER. . . . ENGROSSING FROM THE FIRST PAGE . . . Patterson crank[s] up a wild ride on a roller coaster of morality, politics, and emotions."
--USA Today


"POWERFUL . . . RIVETING FROM BEGINNING TO END . . . With Protect and Defend, Richard North Patterson lays further claim to being one of America’s best contemporary popular novelists."
--The Detroit News

"BRILLIANT . . . PATTERSON HAS CAUGHT LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE. . . . PUT THIS ONE AT THE TOP OF YOUR HOT LIST."
--STEPHEN KING
Expand reviews
Give audiobooks, support local bookstores! Start gifting