‘House Rules’ rules and is also a complex thriller
(“House Rules” by Mike Lawson, Atlantic Monthly Press, 374 pages, $23).
This is the third novel by Mike Lawson about Joe DeMarco, the lawyer son of a Mafia hit man who himself was murdered. Joe is one of the strangest, most imaginative anti-heroes in the fiction world.
He has an office in the lower dungeons of the national Capitol and serves at the pleasure of the very powerful speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Joe does the work that the speaker doesn’t want publicized, such as collecting cash-stuffed envelopes from lobbyists, digging into interesting situations that catch the speaker’s attention and, sometimes, delving into national security issues.
Joe gets help from Emma, a mysterious but beautiful lesbian, a kind of retired spy who can call on all sorts of government help from helicopter gunships to Army troops. Fat Neil is an information broker who works the computers for money.
If this all sounds offbeat and interesting, it definitely is. Joe, whose official title is meaningless — counsel pro tem for liaison affairs for the U.S. Congress — is trying to outguess the FBI, Homeland Security and a host of other government agencies over several foiled terrorist attacks by assumed Muslim Americans. It all becomes too suspicious for DeMarco, and he digs into the mess.
The dialogue is first rate, the action is exciting, and the plot is thrillingly complex as Joe seeks out the truth. If you like this book — and you will — be sure to check out the first two novels in this series.
Francis Moul, Ph.D., is an environmental historian.
This is the third novel by Mike Lawson about Joe DeMarco, the lawyer son of a Mafia hit man who himself was murdered. Joe is one of the strangest, most imaginative anti-heroes in the fiction world.
He has an office in the lower dungeons of the national Capitol and serves at the pleasure of the very powerful speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Joe does the work that the speaker doesn’t want publicized, such as collecting cash-stuffed envelopes from lobbyists, digging into interesting situations that catch the speaker’s attention and, sometimes, delving into national security issues.
Joe gets help from Emma, a mysterious but beautiful lesbian, a kind of retired spy who can call on all sorts of government help from helicopter gunships to Army troops. Fat Neil is an information broker who works the computers for money.
If this all sounds offbeat and interesting, it definitely is. Joe, whose official title is meaningless — counsel pro tem for liaison affairs for the U.S. Congress — is trying to outguess the FBI, Homeland Security and a host of other government agencies over several foiled terrorist attacks by assumed Muslim Americans. It all becomes too suspicious for DeMarco, and he digs into the mess.
The dialogue is first rate, the action is exciting, and the plot is thrillingly complex as Joe seeks out the truth. If you like this book — and you will — be sure to check out the first two novels in this series.
Francis Moul, Ph.D., is an environmental historian.
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