annieb123's Review of House Privilege (Joe DeMarco, #14) (Joe DeMarco Thrillers, #14)

by Mike Lawson

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.

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

House Privilege is the 14th book in the Joe DeMarco thriller series by Mike Lawson. Released 7th July 2020 by Grove Atlantic on their Atlantic Monthly Press imprint, it's 320 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

This is a really well written engaging and fast paced mystery full of skullduggery, crime mobs, high stakes murder, and at the center of it all, the fixer with a heart of gold, rescuing damsels, protecting orphans, righting wrongs, and exposing the bad guys. In a lot of very good ways, this book reminded me of John D. MacDonald's superlative Travis McGee books, with a dash of Robert B. Parker thrown in for good measure. That isn't to say that this book was derivative, it's not, the author has a masterful grasp of plotting and narrative arc and the nuts and bolts of the story work very well.

There's a fair amount of graphic violence and strong language - murder, mob bosses, embezzlement and the like, and readers who find the "f-bomb" problematic might want to give this one a miss. There's also a short but somewhat graphic description of a small-craft airplane crash with attendant death (it's very short and central to the plot).

Despite being the 14th book in the series, this one works perfectly well as a standalone. I hadn't read any of the other books for at least a couple years (my notes before 2018 were sketchy at best) and I had no trouble following any of the action.

Four stars. Well worth a look.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

House Privilege (Joe DeMarco, #14) (Joe DeMarco Thrillers, #14)

by Mike Lawson

Reviewed by annieb123 on Sep 3, 2020

Reading updates