In Dark Lady, Richard North Patterson displays the mastery of setting, psychology, and story that makes him unique among writers of suspense, and one of today's most original and enthralling novelists.

In August of 2011 an Al Qaeda operative masterminds the theft of a Pakistani military weapon: a two-hundred-pound nuclear warhead, capable of causing destruction on an unprecedented scale. A chilling transmission is then broadcast to the world, promising a major attack on a US city to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Intelligence indicates that the bomb has been smuggled out of Pakistan and is en route to the US, with Washington, D.C. or New York the likely target. But Agent Brooke Chandler knows otherwise.

Powerful, glamorous television journalist Mary Carelli is charged with the murder of famed novelist Mark Ransom. However, she pleads self-defense against rape. Christopher Paget, Mary's attorney (and former lover), prepares to shock the courtroom with revelations about Ransom's past as a twisted sexual predator. But as the trial unfolds, Paget is in for some surprises of his own. He learns that Mary may not be telling the whole truth about the rape, and may well have a secret motive for murder. Meanwhile, newly disclosed tapes of Ransom force Mary to confront ugly secrets about her own past, including testimony at Congressional hearings 15 years earlier that led to her stardom and helped Paget bring down the President.

David Wolfe's life is approaching an exhilarating peak: a successful San Francisco lawyer, he's about to get married and has been primed for a run for Congress. But when the phone rings and he hears the voice of Hana Arif, the Palestinian woman with whom he had a passionate affair in law school, he begins a completely unexpected journey. The day after Hana's call, the prime minister of Israel is assassinated by a suicide bomber - and soon Hana is accused of being the mastermind behind the murder.

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track - until the recession hits and she gets downsized, furloughed, escorted out of the building. Samantha, though, is one of the "lucky" associates. She's offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, after which there would be a slim chance that she'd get her old job back. In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about.