The Second Amendment #2 — John Matthews

Read the book that publishers didn't want you to read! At the height of my career with Penguin, between Past Imperfect and Ascension Day, I wrote a novel called 'The Second Amendment.' Too American a theme, said Penguin; too controversial, said US publishers. However, to my agent and numerous readers since, in terms of a hard-edged, no compromises, adrenalin-rush thrill ride, it was my best book. Too controversial? We should recall that pre-911, the Oklahoma bombing was the biggest terrorist attack to take place on US soil; and the NRA continues to be one of the most powerful lobby groups. In the ten years since first writing The Second Amendment, there have been over 200,000 gun deaths in the USA, from simple domestic or street arguments to drive-by shootings or Columbine-style school massacres. It remains an enigma of US society that there isn't as strong a voice for them as for the groups keen to preserve guns; which is no doubt why, still ten years on, gun control remains one of the hottest debates in US society and beyond. One simple thesis. But it threatens the veryroots of the Constitution. There's too much at stake.20,000 gun deaths a year, schoolyard massacres, and now a wave of militia bombings. America is under siege. At the heart of the storm is Josette Horvath, the FBI counter-terrorist agent whose world is torn apart when her young son, Daniel, falls victim to a militia bomb. Her brother Bernard's latest political studies thesis meanwhile focuses on the thorny issue suddenly foremost with the President and an outraged America: stricter gun control. But Bernard doesn't appreciate just how momentous and far-reaching his thesis is destined to become. And as Josette, torn between tracking the bombers and coping with her son's fate, discovers the extent to which the far right have infiltrated the FBI and the White House - she realizes this is one final battle she can't possibly win. An explosive, uncompromising thriller which confronts head-on one of the