The Inside Ring
Michael Lawson
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2005 Doubleday
ISBN: 0385515316

When a presidential assassination attempt goes awry, Joe DeMarco is sent in to find who ordered the hit.

From a bluff overlooking Georgia's Chattooga River, an assassin fires three shots. The President of the United States is wounded; his best friend & a Secret Service agent are killed. Two days later, a man in Landover, Maryland, commits suicide, leaving overwhelming evidence that he was responsible for the assassination attempt.

General Andy Banks, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is nursing a guilty conscience. Only days before he had received a note with a dire warning. The message, on Secret Service stationery, was signed “An agent in the wrong place.” Banks immediately passed the note on to Secret Service Director Patrick Donnelly, who proceeded to ignore it.

Not convinced that the real assassin is dead, Banks turns to the Speaker of the House to dig deeper. John Fitzgerald Mahoney in turn summons Joe DeMarco -- his “under-the-radar” investigator & “odd job man”. DeMarco is a rarity: an honest out-of-work lawyer, who comes from a dangerous family background.

After one meeting with Banks, DeMarco realizes he's in way over his head. But Mahoney finds the prospect of taking down Donnelly irresistible & sics DeMarco on a trail that twists through the Secret Service, the FBI, the DHS, & then snakes all the way back to one of the more enduring mysteries of the twentieth century.

Joe DeMarco carries a lot of baggage from his past. His dad was a Mafia hitman for whom he has fond memories, & even though he works inside the Beltway, & Congress, he's an outsider. Now, he's hunting for clues to who set the hit in motion, who pulled the trigger, & who was really supposed to die that day.

Brimming with suspense, authenticity, & wit, The Inside Ring is Michael Lawson's deftly written debut political thriller, introducing a cast of intriguing (if not particularly likable) characters... except Joe DeMarco.

Kept me turning the pages!

Michael Lawson served for years as a senior civilian executive for the United States Navy. He lives in the Pacific Northwest &, lucky us, is working on his next Joe DeMarco novel. I look forward to it!
(05/22/05)

Rebecca