Washington DC

Quick Review: McKENNA’S GUY by Mike Lawson (Blackstone)

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A curious home-invasion case, and the detective determined to get to the truth

When an intruder with murderous intent breaks into Roger Smith’s modest home one night, the big brute gets more than he bargained for, ending up a bloody corpse staining Roger’s carpet.

Washington, DC, Detective Grace Lillinthal is summoned to the crime scene and marvels at the outcome. Why would anyone want to kill gray-haired Roger Smith? He’s the picture of respectability-a widower devoted to his family, an amateur painter, and a civil servant who works at the Government Publishing Office. When asked why he’d be a target, a clearly shaken Roger claims to be baffled.

But instinct tells Grace there’s more to Roger’s story, and when she learns that Roger-after killing his home invader and before calling the police-phoned John McKenna, she knows she’s onto something. John McKenna is a disreputable character of the first order. He’s the gregarious, larger-than-life owner of a local bar that’s a notorious den of thieves.

After one hired assassin fails, another’s bound to show up. The clock is ticking for Roger and McKenna to find out who wants Roger dead and why-and suspects abound. Stubborn Grace is as determined to dig up Roger’s secrets as he is to keep them hidden, and soon the investigation becomes a relentless game of cat and mouse. Even if Roger doesn’t consider himself a criminal, as chaos takes hold of his world, survival requires that he think like one.

I have been a fan of Mike Lawson’s novels for a very long time (ever since his debut, The Inside Ring), and his Joe DeMarco series is one of my favourite ongoing thriller series. With his latest novel, the author introduces a new protagonist and slight shift in genre. When I was lucky enough to get a review copy, I dove right in. And I’m happy to report that I enjoyed this very much. Continue reading →

Quick Review: OPPO by Tom Rosenstiel (Ecco)

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RosenstielT-3-OppoUSThe third Rena & Brooks Washington, D.C., thriller

The story of a senator who is offered the vice presidential slot by both parties’ presidential nominees and then gets ominous threats

It’s presidential primary season in Washington, DC, and both parties are on edge. At campaign rallies for all the candidates around the country, there are disturbing incidents of violence and protest and shocking acts of civil disobedience. Rena and Brooks are happy to sit it out.

Against this backdrop, Wendy Upton, the highly respected centrist senator, must make a choice: she’s been offered the VP slot by both parties’ leading candidates. When she receives an anonymous, unnerving threat that could destroy her promising career, she hires Peter Rena to investigate her past and figure out which side is threatening her and what they are threatening her with.

As Rena digs through the senator’s seemingly squeaky-clean past, he must walk the tightrope between two parties at war with each other and with themselves, an electorate that is as restive as it has ever been, and a political culture that is as much driven by money as it is by ideology.

In this third outing for Rosenstiel’s political fixers Peter Rena and Brooks, the fixers are hired to investigate a threat made against a centrist Republican senator who has been approached by frontrunners in both parties offering her the VP slot on their respective tickets. An examination of the devolution of American (presidential) politics, and the dark forces that manipulate the electorate and process, I enjoyed this novel. Continue reading →

Quick Review: HOUSE ARREST by Mike Lawson (Atlantic Monthly Press)

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LawsonM-JD13-HouseArrestUSIn the wake of a political assassination, Joe DeMarco is framed as the killer…

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.

I’ve been reading Mike Lawson’s Joe DeMarco series since the first novel, The Inside Ring, was published in the UK. Each new book in the series has been a highlight of Spring ever since. In House Arrest, the thirteenth instalment, the series comes to a bit of a head: DeMarco’s life and career are thrown into the spotlight when he is framed for an attention-grabbing, audacious political murder. I enjoyed reading this novel a great deal. Continue reading →

Quick Review: SHINING CITY by Tom Rosenstiel (Ecco)

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RosenstielT-1-ShiningCityUSPolitical intrigue and machinations surrounding a SCOTUS nomination. And a killer looking for revenge…

Peter Rena is a “fixer.” He and his partner, Randi Brooks, earn their living making the problems of the powerful disappear. They get their biggest job yet when the White House hires them to vet the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Judge Roland Madison is a legal giant, but he’s a political maverick, with views that might make the already tricky confirmation process even more difficult. Rena and his team go full-bore to cover every inch of the judge’s past, while the competing factions of Washington D.C. mobilize with frightening intensity: ambitious senators, garrulous journalists, and wily power players on both sides of the aisle.

All of that becomes background when a string of seemingly random killings overlaps with Rena’s investigation, with Judge Madison a possible target. Racing against the clock to keep his nominee safe, the President satisfied, and the political wolves at bay, Rena learns just how dangerous Washington’s obsession with power — how to get it and how to keep it — can be.

This is a very fine debut novel. It is the story of a judicial confirmation, the personal and political aspects of such a fight, colliding with a quest for vengeance. If you’re looking for an intelligent political drama, then Shining City is for you. One of my favourite reads of the year so far. Continue reading →

Upcoming: TRIGGER by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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SwinsonD-FM3-TriggerUSI read David Swinson‘s The Second Girl and Crime Song back-to-back last year, and I absolutely loved them. The first book made Swinson one of my must-read novelists, and the sequel only confirmed it. Ever since, I’ve been eagerly awaiting news of a third book in the series (or a stand-alone, I’m not too picky). In a recently-uploaded catalog on Edelweiss, I found information about Trigger, the third novel featuring troubled private investigator Frank Marr. Unfortunately, it’s not due to be published until February 2019 (by Mulholland Books), which is so far away!

Frank Marr was a good cop, until his burgeoning addictions to alcohol and cocaine forced him into retirement from the D.C. Metro police. Now, he’s barely eking out a living as a private investigator for a defense attorney — also Frank’s ex-girlfriend.

Ostracized by his family after a botched case that led to the death of his baby cousin, Jeffrey, Frank was on a collision course with rock bottom. Now clean and clinging hard to sobriety, Frank passes the time — and tests himself — by robbing the houses of local dealers, taking their cash and flushing their drugs down the toilet. When an old friend from his police days needs Frank’s help to prove he didn’t shoot an unarmed civilian, Frank is drawn back into the world of dirty cops and suspicious drug busts, running in the same circles that enabled his addiction those years ago.

Never one to play by the rules, Frank recruits a young man he nearly executed years before. Together — a good man trying not to go bad and a bad man trying to do good — detective and criminal charge headfirst into the D.C. drug wars. Neither may make it out.

Trigger is one of my most-anticipated novels, and I can’t wait to read it. David Swinson’s novels are published by Mulholland Books in North America and in the UK.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Second Girl and Crime Song

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Twitter

Review: CRIME SONG by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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swinsond-crimesongusFrank Marr is back!

Marr, a retired D.C. police detective working as a private eye for a defense attorney, has a serious problem. He is secretly a drug addict, and his long-time supply of cocaine is about to run out.

While staking out an upscale nightclub in an attempt to target the stash-houses of dealers from whom to steal for his fix, he settles on a target: a young college student. After a long night in pursuit of his quarry, Marr returns home to find he has been burglarized. Though his drugs are safe, several items are missing: his .38 revolver and his cherished music collection (with dozens of albums belonging to his deceased mother.) Marr immediately begins investigating the crime himself.

But when the dealer Marr had been following is stabbed to death in his own fortified home, Frank is certain that the burglary and murder are related. With good cops, bad cops, and exceptionally dangerous drug lords on his tail, Frank is determined to find out the truth, even if it kills him. This time, it just might.

I started reading Crime Song only a few hours after finishing The Second Girl, Swinson’s superb first Frank Marr novel. I’m very happy to report that Crime Song is yet another excellent crime novel, easily cementing Swinson among the ranks of favourite crime/thriller authors. This is a must-read series. Continue reading →

Upcoming: THE SECOND GIRL by David Swinson (Mulholland)

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David Swinson‘s The Second Girl looks really interesting — the start of a new crime series, set in Washington, D.C. Here’s the synopsis:

He’s a good detective… with a bad habit.

Frank Marr may be a decorated former cop and the best private investigator Washington, D.C. has ever known, but the city doesn’t know his dirty secret.

A high-functioning drug addict, Frank has devoted his considerable skills to hiding his habit from others. But after accidentally discovering a kidnapped teenage girl in the home of a drug gang, Frank becomes a hero and is thrust into the spotlight.

Reluctantly, he agrees to investigate the disappearance of another girl — possibly connected to the first — all the time knowing that the heightened scrutiny may bring his own secrets to light…

The Second Girl is published by Mulholland Books in the UK and US, in June 2016.

Review: HOUSE RECKONING and HOUSE RIVALS by Mike Lawson (Grove/Atlantic)

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LawsonM-JD09-HouseReckoningThe ninth and tenth Joe DeMarco novels

When Joe DeMarco was a boy, he always knew his father, Gino, had a shadowy job, working for a violent mafioso in New York. But he didn’t know that his father had been a hit man until he was murdered. The crime was never solved, but twenty years later, one of Gino’s former mob associates wants to get something off his chest before retiring to his grave: the truth about Gino DeMarco’s killer.

Only the alleged killer was not just another hood, but a supposedly upstanding citizen who is now on the brink of taking a job in Washington, D.C., that would leave him virtually untouchable. If DeMarco has any hope of finding out the truth and avenging his father’s death, he will have to act quickly. But is revenge over a two-decades-old tragedy worth his job, and maybe even his life?

House Reckoning tells DeMarco’s personal story in full for the first time, from his upbringing in Queens to his complicated relationship with his father.

Mike Lawson’s Joe DeMarco novels are among my favourite political thrillers. The series has been pretty varied so far, taking DeMarco all over the map. In these two novels, something from his past takes him to New York City and something in his boss’s past (and a fanatical offspring) takes him to the Dakotas and Montana. Another two great additions to the series.
Continue reading →

Review: THE WAYS OF THE DEAD and MURDER, D.C. by Neely Tucker (Penguin/Windmill)

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A fantastic, must-read new thriller series

Sarah Reese, the teenage daughter of a powerful Washington, D.C. judge, is dead, her body discovered in a slum in the shadow of the Capitol. Though the police promptly arrest three local black kids, newspaper reporter Sully Carter suspects there’s more to the case. Reese’s slaying might be related to a string of cold cases the police barely investigated, among them the recent disappearance of a gorgeous university student.

A journalist brought home from war-torn Bosnia and hobbled by loss, rage, and alcohol, Sully encounters a city rife with its own brand of treachery and intrigue. Weaving through D.C.’s broad avenues and shady backstreets on his Ducati 916 motorcycle, Sully comes to know not just the city’s pristine monuments of power but the blighted neighborhoods beyond the reach of the Metro. With the city clamoring for a conviction, Sully pursues the truth about the murders — all against pressure from government officials, police brass, suspicious locals, and even his own bosses at the paper.

A wry, street-smart hero with a serious authority problem, Sully delves into a deeply layered mystery, revealing vivid portraits of the nation’s capital from the highest corridors of power to D.C.’s seedy underbelly, where violence and corruption reign supreme — and where Sully must confront the back-breaking line between what you think and what you know, and what you know and what you can print. Inspired by the real-life 1990s Princeton Place murders and set in the last glory days of the American newspaper, The Ways of the Dead is a wickedly entertaining story of race, crime, the law, and the power of the media. Neely Tucker delivers a flawless rendering of a fast-paced, scoop-driven newsroom — investigative journalism at its grittiest.

It’s taken me a while to finally get around to reading this series, despite buying The Ways of the Dead on the day of its UK release last year. Nevertheless, with the recent publication of Murder, D.C., I decided it was time to give it a try — and I’m really glad that I did. I read both of these novels back-to-back, and in a handful of blissful days of reading. Both of these novels are fantastic — brilliantly written, plotted and paced, they are easily two of the best crime novels I’ve read in quite a few years. Continue reading →

Review: THE TARGET by David Baldacci (Macmillan/Grand Central)

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Baldacci-WR3-TargetUKThe third Will Robie thriller sets him and Jessica Reel on a collision courts with the Hermit Kingdom…

The President knows it’s a perilous, high-risk assignment. If he gives the order, he has the opportunity to take down a global menace, once and for all. If the mission fails, he would face certain impeachment, and the threats against the nation would multiply. So the president turns to the one team that can pull off the impossible: Will Robie and his partner, Jessica Reel.

Together, Robie and Reel’s talents as assassins are unmatched. But there are some in power who don’t trust the pair. They doubt their willingness to follow orders. And they will do anything to see that the two assassins succeed, but that they do not survive.

As they prepare for their mission, Reel faces a personal crisis that could well lead old enemies right to her doorstep, resurrecting the ghosts of her earlier life and bringing stark danger to all those close to her. And all the while, Robie and Reel are stalked by a new adversary: an unknown and unlikely assassin, a woman who has trained her entire life to kill, and who has her own list of targets – a list that includes Will Robie and Jessica Reel.

The Target is another great addition to this relatively-new series from Baldacci. Taking the popular central character of government assassin, the author has managed to forge a somewhat original path. The novel is gripping, excellently-paced, and well-researched. As has become the norm with Baldacci’s novels, I really enjoyed reading this. Continue reading →