House
Rules
A
Joe DeMarco Thriller
Mike
Lawson
Atlantic
Monthly Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-87113-983-9 (0871139839)
ISBN-13: 978-0-87113-983-2 (9780871139832)
Publication Date: June 2008
List Price: $23.00
Synopsis (from
the publisher): A terrorist attack, a bomb meant for the Baltimore
Harbor Tunnel, is narrowly averted. Then a private plane headed
straight for the White House ignores warnings and is shot down. The
pilot, a Muslim American, is suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda. An
atmosphere of fear and panic overruns the country, and when the junior
senator from Virginia introduces legislation to deport all non-citizen
Muslims and start extensive background checks of all Muslim Americans,
his bill gains surprising traction.
Speaker of the House John Fitzgerald Mahoney is not pleased. He knows
it is the kind of knee-jerk intolerant response people will come to
regret, like the Japanese internment camps in World War II, and he
needs to find a way to kill the bill before it reaches the House. But
Mahoney has a secret—the man who tried to park his plane on
the president’s desk was the son of one of his oldest
friends. The speaker is in a bind, and also has some vague suspicions
about the attack, so he calls his man DeMarco.
An average guy, DeMarco struggles with debt, divorce, and a difficult,
unreasonable boss. He is an unlikely hero, in over his head, relying on
old friends— Emma, a spy who may or may not be retired, and
Neil, an information broker— as he attempts to get to the
bottom of the attacks.
Review:
Congressional investigator Joe DeMarco is called upon to look into a
series of terrorist threats by the Speaker of the House in House Rules,
the third political thriller in this series by Mike Lawson.
America is in a state of unrest. There have been attempts to bomb a
railway terminal and to fly a plane into the heart of Washington DC.
People are increasingly fearful and more panic-stricken as each new
assault is made. A senator from Virginia contends that all that is
necessary to calm the country is to run background checks on all
Muslims and deport any who are not American. He is so sure this will
stop the violence against Americans that he proposes a law to bring
before Congress. Other senators as well as representatives, including
the Speaker of the House, are against his proposal and set out to fight
it through other channels. One of those channels is in the person of
Joe DeMarco, the go-to-guy for the House Speaker, who is assigned the
task of finding the source of the most recent terrorist acts, attacks
in which the terrorist, a Muslim, was killed before his task had been
completed. It looks to Joe like the man might have been coerced into a
situation and then killed for some reason before he could fulfill his
mission. Who would go to such lengths? It would take someone with a lot
of power and money to initiate such attacks and unfortunately there is
no shortage of people locally with both: the mob, drug lords, and, of
course, politicians.
House
Rules is an exhilarating read
full of surprises from beginning to end. A political thriller to be
sure, but also a terrific whodunit-style mystery. Lawson delivers an
insider view of the workings of Congress, the FBI, and other government
agencies that add a level of sophistication to the novel that works to
its benefit. At the center of the story, though, is Joe DeMarco, a
likeable hero who realizes he cannot do it all alone and enlists the
aid of some old friends, colorful characters in their own right. A
thoroughly entertaining book, House
Rules
is highly recommended.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of House Rules and to Mike Lawson for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read House Rules? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
The
Inside Ring
Doubleday (Hardcover), May 2005
ISBN-10: 0-385-51531-6 (0385515316)
ISBN-13: 978-0-385-51531-3 (9780385515313)
The
Second
Perimeter
Doubleday (Hardcover), July 2006
ISBN-10: 0-385-51532-4 (0385515324)
ISBN-13: 978-0-385-51532-0 (9780385515320)
House Rules
Atlantic Monthly Press (Hardcover), June 2008
ISBN-10: 0-87113-983-9 (0871139839)
ISBN-13: 978-0-87113-983-2 (9780871139832)
Omnimystery
keywords for House Rules
...
Location(s) referenced: Washington
DC.
