Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: House Standoff by Mike Lawson

It’s been awhile since I checked in with Joe DeMarco, the sardonic Capitol Hill troubleshooter, problem solver, and fixer created by Mike Lawson. In the 15^th book of the series DeMarco leaves his usual Washington, DC, environs and heads west to Wyoming after he learns that a former girlfriend was shot in the small town of Waverly. No suspects had been identified and the only motive considered was robbery, as her purse and laptop were gone. His boss, the corrupt Congressman John Mahoney, is on a factfinding mission to China, so Joe can slip out of the office for a couple of days unnoticed.

Shannon Doyle was in Wyoming to gather material for her next novel. She had been intrigued by the standoff a few years earlier that occurred between a local rancher who wanted to graze his herd on public lands without paying for it and the Bureau of Land Management who decided to take a few cattle instead. The rancher and his staff held the BLM personnel at gunpoint and eventually the government backed down.

Feelings against the BLM were still high and DeMarco learned that a BLM agent who had been in the area to monitor public land usage had been killed a short time before Shannon was shot and no one arrested. DeMarco wondered if there was a connection. He discovered her diary, which no one knew she kept. It described the town residents in some detail and Shannon’s dealings with them.

As usual, DeMarco lost no time in annoying the locals. He was repeatedly invited to leave town. After being mugged once, he decided to buy a bulletproof vest and hired an investigator he’d worked with before to serve as bodyguard. But in the end, even after all the ructions he caused, it was the FBI who solved Shannon Doyle’s murder, not DeMarco.

Mike Lawson reliably turns out one good book after another. They each have a fast-moving, complex story with cynical asides from the jaded DeMarco and insights into the inner workings of the Federal government. Sometimes when a long-running series takes the main character away from his usual haunts, the story falters because the character relies on the world around it for definition. Perhaps because the Federal government is still present in the form of the BLM, this book doesn’t have that flaw. I am still in two minds about the ending, though, which was more than a little unexpected.

Recommended, especially for fans of political thrillers.

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3wMbXST 

·         Publisher: ‎Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition (April 6, 2021)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎304 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0802158560

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0802158567

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.