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

The undercover agent in Tehran informs the CIA that an American defense contractor is selling missile technology to the Iranian government. A congressional leak to the media leads to the CIA operative being exposed and captured in Tehran where he is tortured and executed. The CIA chief is outraged with what happened to a field agent and vows to learn who leaked the information to the reporter as not only was a good person killed but peers know what happened. The journalist is placed in jail for her refusal to release her source. Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney is also fuming over what occurred in Tehran and Congress, but has a personal reason to expose the culprit. He assigns troubleshooter Joe DeMarco to find him the name of who broke the security laws by exposing the name of an operative. Joe teams up with CIA agent Angela DeCaprio as they investigate the leak; only each time they find someone associated with the name dropping that person is murdered. This is an excellent timely entry in the great "House" political series (see House Rules and House Secrets) as Mike Lawson extrapolates from the exposing of Plume to make a case that those who did so deserved punishment for what could have happened to contacts. The story line is fast-paced, loaded with action, and dynamic conspiracies as Joe the ethical cynic and Angela the agent follow the trail while a killer follows their trail. Harriet Klausner

An American defense contractor is selling information to Iran. The CIA has been notified by a spy but not in time to save their own life or the life of the journalist. Joe DeMarco is given the job of piecing together this puzzle. Finding out who leaked the information to the Journalist and who took the spy's life isn't going to be an easy task. I'm a sucker for a good thriller. This fast-paced book is one of those that flows naturally, which means that you will finish it a lot quicker than you thought!

Very much enjoyed the latest in the Joe DeMarco series, but I thought Joe was kind of secondary, although it was great fun to see more of the Speaker. He is such a complex and interesting character (what a politician!).

The action in this book never stopped, from first page to last. Another solid Joe DeMarco thriller, even more convoluted than Lawson's others in this series. The cast of characters in this book (iranian, Russian, CIA, Congress) was large, but Lawson kept them under his control and they made the story what it was. The author apparently knows all about the dirty political games played in Washington and many of them are exposed in this novel. A can't-put-down book loaded with one surprise after another!

What begins as the usual Joe De Marco coverup on behalf of his boss, Speaker of the House, John Fitzpatrick Mahoney, explodes into a complex plot of murder and mayhem, all beneath the radar of law enforcement. De Marco is a fixer for the Speaker, an off-the-record employee whose only real job is to do the dirty work for his powerful boss, within limits. But in this thriller, which begins with a leak, a newspaper story of a clandestine meeting to sell Iran missile technology and the tragic death of a dedicated spy in Iran, De Marco finds himself embroiled in the shady world of spycraft, the CIA's reaction to the loss of one of their own and the clandestine activities of the Russian mob in America. De Marco is dispatched to deal with the reporter who has chosen jail in order to protect her sources. Over-the-hill and desperate for a book deal, Sandra Whitmore demands Mahoney's help via the threat of revealing a past indiscretion. Hoping to work his magic and make the problem go away, De Marco steps into a morass of complicated agendas, a CIA director who wants revenge, a brutal Russian mobster who has been bleeding a company dry, a surfer-tech genius whose greed has left him vulnerable, a beautiful CIA agent who wants to make her bones and make a difference in the war on terror and a silent, deliberative killer who stalks De Marco from one source to another, a pile of dead bodies in his wake. For all the drama and the danger, there is a grim irony in Lawson's novel, the characters a rogue's gallery of miscreants and patriots, from hired thugs and contract killers to the cold-eyed Russian who hovers below the radar of federal attention until the botched Iran deal. And while De Marco is the link between these disparate folk, from mob muscle to corrupt individuals courting personal gain, it is the solitary killer who remains the key, who tortures and kills with impunity but saves De Marco from another's bullet. House Justice is a wild ride through unpredictable territory, from the CIA's passion for revenge to the Russian thug, each link in the chain that led to the spy's demise eliminated. Washington politics seem tame compared to this tale, but greed and corruption breed at the heart of it all. Luan Gaines/2010.