DeMarco is asked to look into the murder conviction of a lobbyist. But he has other worries on his mind: his boss is no longer Speaker, his girlfriend has left him, and his friend Emma may be dying. DeMarco doesn’t expect to free the lobbyist – much less to become the target of two of the most callous killers he and Emma have ever encountered.
About Mike Lawson
Michael Lawson is a former nuclear engineer who turned to full-time writing in May 2003. He lives with his family in the United States.
Editorial Review
Orson Mulray, new CEO of Mulray Pharma, is counting on a new drug that can eliminate Alzheimer’s disease—and, even more importantly, make his company bigger and more powerful than it was under his unloving and underachieving father. True-believing philanthropist Lizzie Warwick has put her organization at Mulray’s beck and call in Peru, not knowing the testing of subjects has led to four deaths—and that the deaths are treated as necessary to the experiments. Her lobbyist discovers the truth but is murdered before he can share it with her. DeMarco, deposed Speaker of the House John Mahoney’s go-to guy, is soon pursued by professional killers who learned their tactics in Delta Force. DeMarco’s friend Emma, a former intelligence agent dying of cancer, is swept into the plot as well. Her calmly pragmatic response to a violent threat is one of the highlights of the book, leaving us wishing she were in it more. DeMarco is a likable enough character with a good sense of humor, but can’t be said to have much in the way of star power. Lawson, a former senior civilian executive for the Navy, is likewise a competent storyteller, but the writing lacks color, and the action never rises above the functional. - Kirkus Reviews
Dark Doings Among The D.C. Monuments
NPR Book Review – July 9, 2012 (Excerpt)
In Washington, D.C., the glittering marble of public buildings and monuments can conceal the darkest of deeds. And in the crime novels of Mike Lawson, they do.
“When I started writing, the very first decision I made was, I wanted the book set in D.C.,” says Lawson, who recently published his seventh Washington-based thriller, House Blood. “That was before I had a character, or anything else.”
And he had a reason.
“It’s a target-rich environment for a writer,” Lawson says. “There’s always something going on here — something corrupt or silly or sometimes heroic.”
When Lawson got around to casting his thrillers, he created a lead character called Joe DeMarco, who works for the speaker of the House doing … what needs to be done.
And he stayed with his plan of making Washington, D.C., the jumping-off place, seeing the city’s familiar sights as good places for bad things to happen. In House Secrets, he picked the entrance to a Senate office building as the setting for an assassination attempt. [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS
A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith.
- 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
The Bleeding Hills is available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.
