Joe DeMarco Thrillers
15 primary works
Book 1
The West Wing meets 24 in a pace-ridden thriller of conspiracy, corruption and cold-blooded murder.
Joe De Marco is running out of time.
Someone has made an attempt on the president's life, but the wrong man is dead. How could this happen when the president and those nearest to him are protected by a group of men known as The Inside Ring? Is there is a chink in the armour? A break in the circle? Is someone not quite what they seem?
Joe's search for the answers takes him from the corridors of power to the swamps of the southern states, where one lie will lead to another until finally the shocking truth emerges in an orgy of violence.
`The Inside Ring': where greed and corruption walk hand in hand with murder.
Book 2
"A rich variety of spies, former spies, and criminal operatives entangled in a deadly and suspenseful war of attack and reprisal. What could be more entertaining?" --Thomas Perry
When the Secretary of the Navy's nephew tells him that two colleagues at a naval base are committing fraud, he is skeptical and reluctant to start an official investigation. So he asks Speaker of the House John Mahoney to send his fixer, Joe DeMarco, to check out the story. DeMarco and his friend Emma, a semi-retired intelligence agent, soon realize that what they thought was a low-stakes government swindle is something far more terrifying. Soon they're mixed up in a deadly conflict with Chinese spies, and not only is Emma's life in danger, but Mahoney's is as well.
Book 3
Speaker of the House John Mahoney is not pleased. He knows it is the kind of knee-jerk response people will come to regret, like Japanese internment camps, and he needs to find a way to kill the bill before it exposes a secret he wants to keep. So Mahoney calls his man DeMarco. An average guy who struggles with debt, divorce, and an unreasonable boss, DeMarco is an unlikely hero, in over his head, relying on old friends as he attempts to get to the bottom of the attacks in this riveting read, full of suspense, fascinating characters, humor, and timely political intrigue.
Book 4
"Excellent . . . The action builds to a stunning final twist." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In House Secrets, DeMarco is sent by Speaker of the House John Mahoney to look into the accidental death of a mediocre newspaper reporter who, in the days before his death, claimed that he had a lead on the biggest political scandal since Watergate. It turns out that the reporter was on the trail of Senator Paul Morelli, the handsome and gifted rising star from New York, considered a shoo-in for his party's presidential nomination. Morelli's past has already been scrutinized and he looks clean, but then why is DeMarco being followed by a pair of thugs who freelance for the CIA?
Book 5
The director of the CIA isn't about to let the callous sacrifice of his valuable spy go unpunished. DeMarco's boss, Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney has his own reasons to get to the bottom of the leak: he once had a fling with the journalist, and now that she's in jail for refusing to reveal her source, she is threatening to tell all unless he helps get her out.
DeMarco and the CIA aren't the only ones looking for the source of the leak. Someone else wants to avenge the spy's death, and is tailing DeMarco hoping he'll lead him to his prey. House Justice is classic Mike Lawson-- fascinating characters, inside-the-beltway intrigue, and a gripping plot packed with surprises.
Book 6
When the NSA was caught wiretapping U.S. citizens without warrants, a scandal erupted and the program came to a screeching halt. But the man who spearheaded the most sophisticated eavesdropping operation in history wasn't about to sit by while his country sleepwalked into another 9/11. Instead, he moved the program into the shadows. So when the NSA records a rogue military group murdering two American civilians, they can't exactly walk over to the Pentagon and demand to know what's going on. That doesn't mean their hands are tied, however. As the largest intelligence service in the country, both in money and manpower, they have plenty of options-- mostly illegitimate.
DeMarco learns all too well just what the NSA is capable of, but he doesn't like being used, so he fights back. House Divided is inspired and compelling, a strong addition to this celebrated series.
Book 7
Book 8
Mahoney's daughter has been arrested and charged with insider trading. An engineer with a high-flying technology firm, she allegedly placed a half-million dollar bet on one of the firm's clients. DeMarco's job is to clear her name and keep his boss clean. But how did she get her hands on so much money to invest in the first place? Before long, DeMarco uncovers far more about the case than meets the eye, and the risk to Mahoney is more than just a little political embarrassment.
Book 9
DeMarco always knew that his father Gino had a shady job for a local mafioso, but he didn't understand that Gino had been a hitman until he was murdered. Now, nearly twenty years later, one of Gino's former mob associates is dying of lung cancer, and he wants to get something off his chest before retiring to his grave: the truth about Gino's killer. The shocking information, and the powerful position the killer now occupies, sends DeMarco on a mission of revenge with terrible consequences. And after the secret being kept for so long, DeMarco has to rush to do something about it: the killer is on the brink of taking a job in Washington, D.C. that will leave him untouchable.
With his job, his morals, and his very life on the line, DeMarco must ask himself: How far will he go for revenge?
Book 10
The young woman is Sarah Johnson, whose grandfather saved Mahoney's life in Vietnam. For the past two years, Sarah has been on a relentless crusade against a billionaire oil tycoon who has profited handsomely from the natural gas boom in the Dakotas--and who she believes has been bribing small-time politicians and judges to keep things in his favor. Though she has no hard evidence against the man, Sarah has been assaulted and received death threats for her meddling. DeMarco, given his years of experience bending the rules in D.C., suspects that a middleman like himself is pulling strings for the tycoon. But as DeMarco tries to identify his adversaries, the situation turns unexpectedly violent, and DeMarco finds himself in a battle of wits against two ruthless problem solvers who will stop at nothing to win.
Book 11
In the eleventh novel in Mike Lawson's bestselling series, Joe DeMarco helps an elderly woman threatened by a shady real estate developer, then seeks revenge.
Joe DeMarco works for Congress. He's a lawyer with an office in the Capitol and the title of Counsel Pro Tem for Liaison Affairs. But the title is nonsense; DeMarco doesn't practice law, he's a fixer.
In House Revenge, DeMarco's powerful boss, Congressman John Mahoney, dispatches him to his hometown of Boston. Mahoney wants DeMarco to help out an elderly woman named Elinore Dobbs who is holding out against a real estate developer intent on tearing down her apartment building for a massive new development. Elinore is all that stands in the way of about a million square feet of new office space, a hotel, retail shops, restaurants, and a new public park. Mahoney figures he can score some free publicity, get his constituent a nice buyout, and ease into his next reelection. That is, until Elinore refuses to budge and Sean Callahan, the developer, disrespects him. Even worse, Elinore suffers a horrible accident, possibly at the hands of two thugs on Callahan's payroll.
Now Mahoney and DeMarco are out for revenge. DeMarco tries to dig up dirt through Callahan's friends and family, but it's only when he gets a tip on the source of Callahan's financing that things get deadly.
A fast-paced adventure into the cutthroat world behind the wrecking ball, House Revenge is another gripping tale of collusion and corruption from a beloved political thriller writer.
Book 12
Minority Leader of the House and DeMarco's long-time employer John Mahoney has kept more than one secret from his wife over the years, but none so explosive as this: He has a son, and that son has just been shot dead in a bar in Manhattan. Mahoney immediately dispatches DeMarco to New York to assist prosecutor Justine Porter, but with five bystanders willing to testify against the killer--rich-boy Toby Rosenthal--the case seems like a slam-dunk. That is, until Porter begins to suspect that someone is interfering with those witnesses, and that this may be connected to a pattern of cases across the country. Is there someone who is getting witnesses out of the way when the fate of a wealthy defendant is on the line?
With the help of Porter's intern, as outrageously smart as she is young, DeMarco becomes determined to follow that question through to its violent resolution in what turns out to be this series' most unexpected plot yet.
Book 13
As the fixer for Congressman John Mahoney in Washington, D.C., Joe DeMarco has had to bend and break the law more than a few times. But when Representative Lyle Canton, House Majority Whip, is found shot dead in his office in the U.S. Capitol and DeMarco is arrested for the murder, DeMarco knows he's been framed. Locked up in the Alexandria Jail awaiting trial, he calls on his enigmatic friend Emma, an ex-DIA agent, to search for the true killer.
Emma's investigation leads her to Sebastian Spear, the ruthless and competitive CEO of the multi-billion-dollar Spear Industries. Spear had a motive for killing Lyle Canton: Canton's wife, Jean, had once been Spear's high school sweetheart and the one true love of his life--until Canton won her over. Now Jean was dead, killed in a car crash while driving drunk, and Spear blamed Canton for the accident. But the case the F.B.I. has built against DeMarco is airtight, and not a single piece of evidence points to the grieving CEO. Using her cunning and her D.C. connections, Emma sets out to prove that Spear has been using some fixers of his own.
Featuring crimes of passion, corporate corruption, and partisan feuds, House Arrest is a gripping, timely political thriller, and one of Lawson's best books yet.
Book 14
In House Privilege, the fourteenth novel in the DeMarco series, Mike Lawson sends his likeable protagonist on a journey that begins in Boston and ends up in a country beyond the reach of the law.
Fifteen-year-old Cassie Russell, the only daughter of a mega-rich Boston couple, is the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed her parents. She's also the goddaughter of the newly elected Speaker of the House, John Mahoney, and after the crash Mahoney becomes her legal guardian. Normally, Mahoney would send his kind-hearted wife to deal with his new ward, but she's unavailable so he dispatches his fixer, Joe DeMarco, to make sure the girl's okay. DeMarco's job is only to put things into a holding pattern until Mrs. Mahoney is able to step in and take charge--but DeMarco unintentionally flips over a rock and out from under it crawls a lawyer, the one managing Cassie's vast estate. DeMarco learns the lawyer has been embezzling from the estate and may have killed Cassie's parents.
What should have been a simple assignment unleashes murderous plots involving a Boston mob boss and his Irish thugs, and things quickly escalate from there. DeMarco ends up chasing the scheming lawyer halfway around the world to save Cassie and ensure that justice is done. And, this being DeMarco, the legal niceties are mostly ignored.
House Privilege is one of the best instalments yet in Edgar Award-nominee Mike Lawson's long-running series.
Book 15
