House Justice: A Joe Demarco Thriller (The Joe DeMarco Thrillers, 5) - Hardcover

A former senior civilian executive for the United States Navy, Mike Lawson is the author of four previous novels starring Joe DeMarco, The Inside Ring, The Second Perimeter, House Rules, and House Secrets. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

*Starred Review* An American spy in Iran is exposed by a female journalist, and the spy is tortured, then executed. Enraged, the director of Central Intelligence blames the leak on Congress. Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney isn’t sure who leaked the information, but he’s certain the journalist, jailed for refusing to name her source, will spill the beans about their one-night stand 20 years earlier. Mahoney summons Joe DeMarco, his personal gumshoe and fixer, to identify the leaker and keep the journalist from embarrassing him. Lawson’s tight, high-energy prose drives a plot with more turns than the Burma Road, as DeMarco finds himself surrounded by sleazy legislators, CIA spooks, Russian gangsters, FBI agents, assorted hit men, a misanthropic billionaire, a SoCal surfer/computer-gamer/millionaire, and a mysterious Iranian florist hell-bent on avenging the murdered spy. Some two dozen characters, major and minor, are introduced, and Lawson makes all of them memorable; whatever their background—Congress, espionage, Russian organized crime, or American business—they all behave exactly as their culture dictates they must. The dialogue is sharp, cynical, and often funny, but the book succeeds because of its characters. Readers may reasonably wonder if these twisted individuals and the bent cultures that animate them might be shaping our lives. A superb example of the post–cold war espionage novel. --Thomas Gaughan