The Race - Richard North Patterson

Corey Grace - a handsome and charismatic Republican senator from Ohio - is plunged by an act of terrorism into a fierce presidential primary battle with the favorite of the party establishment and a magnetic leader of the Christian right. A decorated Gulf War pilot, Grace insists on voting his own conscience rather than the party line, and this stubborn independence - together with his growing romance with Lexie Hart, an African-American movie star - has earned him a reputation as an unpredictable iconoclast.

But Grace is still haunted by a tragic mistake buried deep in his past, and now his integrity will be put to the test in this most brutal of political contests, in which nothing in his past or present life is off-limits. A vivid and sometimes frightening depiction of contemporary power politics, The Race culminates in a deadlocked and febrile party convention where Grace must resolve the conflict between his feelings for Lexie and his presidential ambitions - and decide just who and what he is willing to sacrifice.