Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: McKenna's Guy by Mike Lawson

 

Mike Lawson is a consistently good author whom I wish were better known. His stories have been shortlisted for Edgar, Barry, and Shamus awards. His political thrillers with unofficial fixer Joe DeMarco skewers the Washington establishment thoroughly while giving his resourceful hero yet one more problem to solve. Lawson branches out into a stand-alone in his newest book, McKenna’s Guy, scheduled for release by Blackstone in early July 2026.

Roger Smith is a retirement age widower living quietly in a modest neighborhood in Washington, DC. He is closing in on a pension from his civil service job, the only job he’s had in his adult life. Smith has one daughter who is married with a child of her own. Predictable and inoffensive to the point of dullness. So why a masked man dressed in black should break into Smith’s house one night and attempt to kill him is a mystery to everyone, especially Smith. Had Smith still been asleep, he would not have survived, as the assassin fired four or five bullets into the bed. Smith fortunately heard the intruder break in and had time to find a baseball bat and retreat behind the bedroom door before the killer entered the room shooting. Then Smith hit the man as hard as he could with the bat, knocking him to the floor. Fear bolstered Smith’s swing, the single blow killed the intruder.

Even in his shock Smith knew he needed a lawyer despite acting in self-defense. He called his friend John McKenna, who had an extensive network, and asked for help, then he called the police. Detective Grace Lillinthal of Homicide was sent to the scene. She assumed she was dealing with a home invasion until she learned that the lawyer that showed up was referred by McKenna, when all her antennae went straight up. McKenna had a reputation as a criminal middleman. No matter what devious or illicit act someone might need assistance with, McKenna knew a guy who could help. That Smith thought to call McKenna first made his entire story suspect in Lillinthal’s mind.

While she relentlessly sought to establish the illicit connection between the two, Smith was trying to find out who cared enough about him to hire a professional hitman and why.

This is another fast-moving, well-written thriller with a unique spin, great characters, and a clever resolution. Readers unfamiliar with Lawson’s work might find this book a good place to start. Recommended!

Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Blackstone Publishing, Inc.

·         Publication date: ‎July 7, 2026

·         Edition‏: ‎Hardcover

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎272 pages

·         ISBN-13: ‎979-8228358188

 

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Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026 

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

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Asset by Mike Lawson

  

The nineteenth book by Mike Lawson about political fixer Joe DeMarco, The Asset (Atlantic Grove, February 2026), finds DeMarco in the midst of his usual covert investigation and problem solving while yearning to perfect his golf swing. Former Speaker of the House, and still mightily annoyed about it, John Mahoney is approached by an ex-CIA agent who tells him that she witnessed the wife of a senior Senator meeting with a Chinese intelligence agent. Instead of reporting the matter to the FBI, Mahoney tasks DeMarco with verifying the connection and then learning more. DeMarco finds out that the wife is being blackmailed over something her college-aged daughter did that could send her to prison. The Chinese agent is willing to exchange his silence for her classified information, creating an impossible situation for this veteran political wife.

DeMarco doesn’t understand how the information came into the agent’s hands initially and wonders if the videotaped evidence has been falsified, and if so, why. He delves further into the background of the daughter, the Chinese agent, and the technical genesis of the video, which yields more questions than answers.

Although DeMarco is denied the assistance of his usual sidekick, retired DIA agent Emma, who despises Mahoney but helps DeMarco when she’s bored, he does have the expertise of a professional hacker now turned white hat and working for the Department of Homeland Security. Neil is happy being on the right side of the law for a change, although large sums of money can make him revert to his old ways.

I was amused to note that the description of the Senator and his wife bears close resemblance to an actual power couple on the Hill.

DeMarco manages to just barely escape being shot or drowned as he is caught up in a dizzyingly escalating torrent of backstabbing players who double-cross each other and then double-cross the double-crossersn.

While this outing starts out amusingly with DeMarco on one of his expeditions for Mahoney, this one in the bucolic hills of eastern Kentucky where he’s getting his city clothes muddy, the story becomes serious quickly and grows increasingly bleaker until the end, which is stunning.

  

 

·         Publisher: ‎Atlantic Crime

·         Publication date ‎February 3, 2026

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎320 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0802167004

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0802167002

 

 

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Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026

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

Happiness Is A Book: Untouchable by Mike Lawson

 Happiness Is A Book: Untouchable by Mike Lawson

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Kingpin by Mike Lawson

I spent much of my holiday break binge-reading. Throughout November and December I stockpiled a number of titles I had been wanting to read and among them was the latest adventure of Joe DeMarco, the troubleshooter for a powerful member of the House of Representatives. In Kingpin (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024) Mike Lawson has produced a riveting political thriller that illustrates the tenuous threads connecting career criminals and millionaires to each other and to the Nation’s government.

It all starts simply enough: a tenants’ rights bill did not pass the House. John Mahoney, former Speaker of the House and Joe DeMarco’s boss, found that a dozen representatives he had been sure of had actually voted against it. Brian Lewis, a first-year law student and a summer intern in his office, was assigned to try to figure out why the representatives had voted against the bill. Lewis threw himself into the task and found what he believed to be evidence of bribery. He was deeply worried and told his mother and his girlfriend that he thought he should report his findings to someone. Then he turned up dead, an apparent victim of a drug overdose. His mother insisted that her son was murdered. Mahoney told DeMarco to try to keep her quiet and to learn if her claims had substance.

DeMarco couldn’t find anything questionable in the police investigation at first but then learned about the research Lewis had been so concerned about. No one could find his notes and Lewis had only talked to his mother and his girlfriend about it. His office was clean and nothing was in his apartment. DeMarco was about to give up when he realized the report could be on Lewis’s personal laptop, but the police did not have it, his mother did not have it, and it wasn’t in his apartment. DeMarco reported the missing computer to the police and they started searching. When the laptop was found the next day, showing signs of tampering, they knew they were dealing with more than an overdose.

There is not a dull moment in this compulsively readable thriller. Those familiar with the activity behind the passage of legislation will understand the references to trade-offs and the quid pro quos on Capitol Hill. DeMarco’s amusing struggles with his air conditioning and the contractor who is supposed to repair it during a miserable Washington, D.C., summer alleviate the high tension. As usual, DeMarco doesn’t tell his boss everything he’s up to. He teams up with the local police and the Capitol Hill police to maneuver and connive his way to an agreeable ending. One of the best in the series. Highly recommended.

·         Publisher: ‎Atlantic Monthly Press (February 6, 2024)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎288 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎0802160883

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-0802160881

 

 

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Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

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

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.

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·         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.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: House Justice by Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson spent most of his career working on nuclear submarines and ships for the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Northwest. When he retired, he decided to write about what he knew, which was the U.S. Government. He created Joe DeMarco, a lawyer and trouble-shooter for the Speaker of the House, as Counsel Pro Tem for Liaison Affairs, based in Washington, DC. DeMarco has appeared in 15 political thrillers since 2005. Five different titles in the series have been shortlisted for the Barry Award and a sixth for the Edgar.

In the fifth book about the political fixer, House Justice (Grove/Atlantic Press, 2010), DeMarco’s at the top of his game, looking for the person who leaked a story that caused the savage death of a valuable spy in Tehran. The journalist who scooped the story refuses to cite her source and she’s imprisoned for contempt of court. From her jail cell, where she’s planning the book based on her experience and the subsequent television appearances, she appeals to DeMarco’s hard-drinking boss Speaker of the House John Mahoney. Either he gets her out of jail or she blows the whistle on their affair of 20 years before. The CIA is also hot on the trail of the informant, as well as someone else who keeps tagging behind DeMarco, waiting for him to find the spiller of the beans.

A fast-moving story that does not lag despite its length. Significant insider detail gives the story a ripped from the headlines of the Washington Post feel. The conflict between the two agency directors protecting their respective territories is most realistic. A slick kidnapping performed by Russian thugs and an even better escape from a moving car on a mountain road. The characters are terrific. Mahoney is an underhanded and womanizing politician who slips out of his office on Capitol Hill to watch the nearby elementary school baseball games and serve as umpire when one is needed. DeMarco tends to stand back and watch the circus antics of those around him while he focuses on the job and ties up loose ends.

Most fans of political thrillers have already discovered Lawson so I am recommending this title for anyone in need of some good contemporary escapism.

Starred review from Booklist.

·         Hardcover: 388 pages

·         Publisher: Grove/Atlantic Monthly Press; First Edition (June 1, 2010)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0802119379

·         ISBN-13: 9780802119377

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

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

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Mike Lawson, reviewed by Doris Stickley

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Mike Lawson, reviewed by Doris Stickley: Last week, the Bristol Public Library lost a beloved member of our family, Doris Stickley . In her role as Marketing Director, she was the ...