The FBI needs to think again in this thriller!

The House majority whip was shot dead in the Capitol office. The killer thought he was too smart to clean the evidence to eliminate himself from being sought by the FBI. They watched the recordings from the CCTV cameras and identified the “perpetrator”. His name was Joe DeMarco who was the son of the former Italian-American mobster.

The victim, Lyle Canton, had recently lost his wife in a road accident four months earlier. The wealthy CEO of Spear Industries had had an affair with Mrs Canton. Is Spear connected to DeMarco? Have the FBI caught the right person? Especially as he claimed that he was innocent.

This title was left to the readers to figure out who was really under house arrest because DeMarco was in custody.

This book was well written and a good thriller!

Columbpoirot

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

Im excited when a new to me author crosses my path, and when that author has a series, Ive struck gold! Mike Lawson writes a very strong and complex character in Joe DeMarco. I have not read the other books in the series, however based on this read, I will seek them out. The female lead is just as strong and layered, and I was grateful for her story arc. It seems the book stands alone just fine. Yes, there are some potshots aimed at the current political climate that might offend some more conservative leaning readers, but I wasnt bothered enough to stop reading.
I received my copy through NetGalley under no obligation.

Set in the current Washington politics background, House Arrest takes us back to the world of Joe Demarco. This book finds the "fixer" in a fix himself. Framed for a murder and unable to do his own type of investigations, He must count on his friend Emma to find out what's really going on. It's definitely a good mystery but also setting up the series for some major changes. A man that has to count on nobody knowing who he is cannot keep up once his face has been plastered all over the papers. Mike Lawson does a great job of writing a series that uses a central group as the hero. His language and backstory shows he has done considerable research and spends the time to keep up to date with the political climate. A great book to spend the weekend reading.

Published by Grove/Atlantic Monthly Press on February 5, 2019

House Arrest is, I think, the thirteenth Joe DeMarco novel. I haven’t kept up with the series because I can’t read everything, and the couple I did read struck me as being okay but nothing special. House Arrest, on the other end, is a book I truly enjoyed.

DeMarco is a lawyer who does off-the-books projects of various kinds for John Mahoney, the Democratic majority leader in the House. He’s occasionally loaned to other politicians who need help. The books are set in the current political world (it is clear that the unnamed president in this book is Trump and that the unnamed House Speaker is Paul Ryan), but the key political characters are fictional. The novel takes place before the 2018 midterms, so Republicans still control the House.

As the novel opens, someone wearing a wig and a Capitol Police uniform kills Congressman Lyle Canton, the Republican Whip, in his Capitol office. Nobody liked Canton, but his biggest enemy was Sebastian Spear, a billionaire who had an affair with Canton’s wife before she got drunk and drove into a tree.

Joe DeMarco was in his office in the subbasement of the Capitol when the murder occurred. An FBI agent interviews him and finds his explanation for being in his office late on a Friday night unconvincing. It doesn’t help that DeMarco’s father was a Mafia hit man and that the FBI can’t figure out what DeMarco’s job is. A search of his office reveals evidence that links him to Canton’s murder. A dozen heavily armed agents in full body armor smash into DeMarco’s home as he’s making dinner and, as the novel’s title suggests, place him under arrest.

It’s good to have friends in high places, including the House leader of the Democratic Party. While Joe languishes in jail, his friend Emma, a retired-but-still-active spook with the DIA, pulls some strings and takes a look at the formidable evidence accumulated by the FBI. But even friends in high places might be an inadequate shield when DeMarco is attacked by prisoners attached to MS-13.

The novel rather drastically changes DeMarco’s life, in that his career has always depended on keeping a law profile. After his arrest for killing a congressman, DeMarco is front page news and will not be able to play the same invisible role for his boss. Whether he will even have a job depends on the election result, which Mike Lawson notes in an afterword was unknown to him when he finished writing the book. Series fans can breathe a sigh of relief that DeMarco might not be evicted from his basement office.

DeMarco actually lurks in the background (he’s either in jail or in a hospital bed) during most of the novel, but Lawson managed to craft a tight, imaginative plot without him. When DeMarco finally returns to action, the story reaches a satisfying climax. The DeMarco novels I’ve read have been uneven, which is why I haven’t tried to read them all. House Arrest, however, benefits from a creative plot that encouraged me to renew my interest in the series.

RECOMMENDED

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.

After a prominent congressman is assassinated, Joe DeMarco’s life is quickly upended as the FBI follow the trail of crumbs that have been left to frame him. He’s arrested, locked up, and also exposed: he’s always worked in a rather opaque, obscure capacity for Mahoney the now-Minority Leader in the House. Hired when Mahoney was the all-powerful Majority Leader, DeMarco’s job was to be the mostly-covert bag man. Even if he is cleared of the crime, because the spotlight has been thrown onto him and his relationship with Mahoney, his whole life has been upended. This is the subject of some of the later chapters in the novel, and it poses some interesting questions for the future of the series (I don’t know if there are plans for more DeMarco novels, but I certainly hope there are).

House Arrest isn’t the strongest novel in the series, but it retains many of the traits that makes Lawson’s work so engaging: solid prose, very good pacing, and interesting characters. There’s also some commentary on the American political and judicial systems — because the series runs sort-of-parallel to the real world, the author is able to freely engage with contemporary issues. In this novel, the author does not hold back in his (well, DeMarco’s, Mahoney’s or Emma’s) opinion of the current White House occupant, referring to him at different times as a “fool”, “moron”, and “idiot” — while Trump is never named, it’s quite clear who these epithets are aimed at. There is also some discussion of the nepotistic nature of politics, and the ways in which shifting power structures and status can have an immediate, considerable impact on those lower down the hierarchy of government.

There’s another interesting thing that has come to characterize Lawson’s series more recently: how Joe DeMarco isn’t as central to the narrative as one might expect from the character after whom the series is named. His movements are subject to the actions and whims of others — whether Mahoney, Emma (who is the dominant POV character, I think), or whichever antagonist is the focus of the novel in question. In House Arrest he is, after all, arrested rather quickly, and then spends his entire time incarcerated. I can’t go into too much detail without spoiling certain plot-points, but through him we see a little bit more about the prison and jail systems, the ways in which politicians, oligarchs, tycoons, and other criminals can meddle in the system and the lives of inmates. Emma remains one of my favourite characters in the series, and I welcomed her more-prominent role. The side-characters are also very well-written: three-dimensional, realistic, and varied.

So, if you’re a fan of the series, I would certainly recommend you read House Arrest. It’s a solid thriller and political/crime novel: well-paced, engaging and interesting. I really hope we haven’t seen the last of DeMarco et al.

I discovered Mike Lawson a few years ago and have thoroughly enjoyed his wonderful books about Joe DeMarco. Joe is the “fixer” for John Mahoney, a powerful Congressman, who sometimes is the Majority Leader, but in this book is the Minority Leader. Why Lawson is not better known is a mystery to me; these books are extremely involving and compelling.

“House Arrest” starts with a killer moving through the halls of Congress, and with an immediate murder. It is quite clear that someone is being set up to take the fall, and of course, that person is Joe DeMarco. I don’t like spoilers so I am not going to give away the plot, but it is exciting and convoluted. Usually Joe is the focus of story, but here some of the secondary characters come to the fore. Although the FBI has a tight case against Joe, his friends know that he did not commit the murder, and they work diligently to free him. It is an interesting twist for a long-running series, of which this is the thirteenth chapter.

I highly recommend “House Arrest.” You do not need to have read the previous books, this one functions perfectly well as a standalone. My prediction, though, is that once you have read this one you will want to read the earlier books, it is that good.

I am a big fan of Mike Lawson’s Joe DeMarco series and his latest book didn’t disappoint. Once again Mr Lawson has scored a homerun.

Joe DeMarco, a “fixer” for a member of the US Congress, finds himself accused of the murder of the House Majority Whip. While it is obvious to his friends that he has been framed, trying to prove it turns out to be a dangerous proposition. Conspiracy theories, gangs, nefarious politics, Russian spies – this book has it all. With good dialogue, a well-plotted story and almost non-stop action, it is a quick read (because it’s hard to put down). Fans of Mike Lawson won’t be disappointed.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

Well written political suspense. It seemed a bit long at times and dragged in my opinion.
It was my first book in the series which I have read. I loved Emma and her conniving ways.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book, recommend.

House Arrest

A gripping and timely political thriller that is skillfully crafted to keep you on the edge of your seat.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

SUMMARY
This is the thirteenth book in Mike Lawson’s delightful Joe Demarco series, where Joe is a fixer for the long-term and powerful Congressman John Mahoney. In HOUSE ARREST Joe is arrested in the aftermath of the murder of Representative Lyle Canton, House Majority Whip and political enemy of John Mahoney. But DeMarco is being framed. Locked up in the Alexandria jail, DeMarco calls his enigmatic friend Emma, an ex-DIA agent to find the true killer. Emma investigation leads to Sebastian Spear, a ruthless CEO of the multi-billion-dollar Spear Industries. Spear motive for killing Canton was Canton’s wife, Jean. Jean had been the love of Spear’s life in high school many years ago and they had recently renewed their friendship. But now Jean was dead, killed in a car crash while driving drunk. Spear blames Canton for the accident. But the case against DeMarco is airtight. All the evidence points directly to him. Can Emma use her cunning and connections to prove DeMarco was innocent before its to late?

REVIEW
I love this series and this is one of MIKE LAWSON’s best! DeMarco is in deep trouble by no fault of his own this time. The story was fast and gripping. And of course the strong and super intelligent Emma comes to the rescue! I love Emma’s character. I love Joe’s character also, but it’s always nice when a woman comes in to save the day. And it’s a book written by a man. Thank you Mike Lawson for writing a strong woman character in this series.

His writing seem effortless and it is totally enthralling. Lawson has published 16 novels, 13 starring Joe DeMarco, and three books in his Kay Hamilton series. He has won The Friend of Mystery award twice and he is a five time nominee for the Barry award. He is a renowned fly fisherman, guide, fly tier, and founder of the Henry's Fork Anglers fly shop. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks to Netgalley for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


Publisher Atlantic Monthly Press
Published February 5, 2019
Review www.bluestockingreviews.com

Fans of Washington political conspiracy thrillers should drop everything and start reading this well written series. Start with this one and you'll be fine. Joe Demarco has always been a fixer- sometimes bending things to make others work. This time, though, he's in deep trouble when all the "evidence" points to him being the murderer of the House of Representatives Majority Whip. Lyle Canton had some secrets in his past, of course, but why was he killed and who did it? Emma, a truly awesome woman, untangles things and finds herself focused on Sebastian Spear. In the meantime, Joe's in hot water in the holding cell. This is appropriately twisty, occasionally a little out there, but always a good read. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I'm looking forward to the next one.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Mike Lawson, and Grove Atlantic for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

In a well-paced political thriller series, Mike Lawson has been able to develop his Joe DeMarco character quite effectively. This latest instalment of the series takes readers on a journey in which DeMarco may be in the middle of the excitement, but plays little role in its overall resolution. When a Republican congressman is gunned down in his office, the FBI swoops in to take control of the situation in short order. During routine preliminary interviews, Joe DeMarco offers up an alibi that appears solid, but has been completely fabricated for no known reason. An anonymous tip sends the Feds to DeMarco’s office, where they find a great deal of forensic evidence that points to DeMarco. He is detained and it would seem as though this is an open and shut case. However, DeMarco’s boss, current House Minority Leader John Maloney, is sure that someone is framing DeMarco to cover their tracks and pushes to have some of his contacts work diligently to uncover the truth. While DeMarco is in prison awaiting trial, he is targeted by a hardcore Mexican gang who seek to eliminate him. With no rational reason for this, it may be part of a larger scheme. Meanwhile, a powerful businessman stands in the shadows, saying little, but pulling strings in such a way that no one can tie anything to him. With the mid-term elections on the horizon, DeMarco’s fate hangs in the balance, if he can live long enough to see it through, forcing Maloney to pull out all the stops at arm’s length to get his fixer from being eliminated. Another great novel by Lawson that entertains series fans as much as those just discovering the author. Recommended to those who have journeyed along with Joe DeMarco from the start, though this novel could attract many one-off fans, as it works as a standalone.

I always await the latest releases by Lawson, as they fit nicely into my reading schedule and can usually be devoured in short order. The mix of politics and a mystery with limited time for resolution always has me enjoying the story and much of the development throughout. Joe DeMarco has evolved a great deal through the process, though the series fan will see that he is coming to the end of his illustrious career, not entirely because of his lack of usefulness. Working on vague and undisclosed projects for his boss, DeMarco has been able to keep a low profile and work effectively. His development throughout the series is shown in this novel with crumbs of backstory tossed around, as well as some personal angst as he awaits someone else to save him, a concept unknown to the ‘fixer’. The other key characters help propel the story forward, making their regular appearances within the narrative. The shift away from being helpers in the cause to the solution to DeMarco’s woes is an interesting twist and adds new layers to the story. The overall presentation is fast-paced and keeps the reader wondering how the cat and mouse game will work, with the killer’s identity fairly certain from the get-go. However, it is the pulling together of pieces and the results of the election that could truly shape the book progress and impact any further novels in the series. Lawson has delivered a dandy here, not to be missed by those who have followed DeMarco from the beginning all those years ago!

Kudos, Mr. Lawson, for another great story. I am eager to see how you will take that ending and make it work moving forward.

Mike Larson, in his thirteenth outing, has created another great thriller in House Arrest. He neer lets his foot off the plot line gas.

Utterly smart, with witty and brilliant power plays among people playing for high stakes - a high level politician is killed in a seemingly perfect murder, but the wrong guy is blamed - the battle to clear his name leads Del Marco and a smart operative to take on US secret forces, and the FBI - gangsters and all the way to the top of the Russian government: with enormous forces lined up against them, the author pulls every trick in the book - making us laugh at the same time. Despite perfect plans and professionalism, human vulnerability always plays out. Gripping and absorbing as the author juggles power plays convincingly - really good - I'm going to find his other books.

Joe and Emma are back in an adventure that pulls them together after missing their chemistry in the last few books. Not saying that one should skip any Joe DeMarco reads - just that the ones where he and Emma connect are more satisfying. And House Arrest has everything cutting edge and current., politics domestic and international. Joe is set up to take the fall for the murder of the majority whip, a man known to be in conflict with Joe's "boss" Mahoney. With all the evidence perfectly lined up - Joe is arrested and taken to jail. Since it would be best for the real killer to have Joe out of the picture, we have people trying to kill him. Emma has to call in favors from old contacts to try and clear Joe and it's all so frighteningly believable. This one is just a very well-done-everything-falls-into-place refreshing story! Of course we are left with some serious questions. Will Joe's life ever be the same, will he get that pension, and will the guy who tried to help him in jail show up again as a character in the next book....Hope Mike Lawson is working on #14 right now.

This is another fabulous addition to the Demarco series. I really enjoy Mike Lawson’s writing style, and his ability to come up with so many wonderful stories, that are all quite different to each other. The main standout for me is the work he puts into the characters.
You would have thought if any of the Demarco family would have ended up in jail it would have been Joe’s dad. Especially since when he was alive he was a hired hit-man for the mob. However, that is exactly where Joe Demarco found himself, locked away for murder. Joe had certainly done some things over the years that could have landed him in prison, and he would have understood if that’s what happened at the time, however this time he was completely innocent. It didn’t help of course that the man murdered was a politician, and a powerful one at that. At least Joe has people on the outside looking out for him, as prison isn’t going to be the safest place for him. I really did enjoy this book from the first page, right through to the last page. A very entertaining and captivating read. 5/5 Star Rating.

Twelfth Joe De Marco book. This is a very good series with a political emphasis. The politics involved because Joe is an “off the books” employee of the past/current Speaker of the House. (Depending on book sequence).
Joe is being framed for the killing of a Congressman. So, for most of the book is a minor character in this book. He is replaced by Emma. Emma is a great character and is charged with investigating why Joe is being framed and getting him out and cleared.
The first chapter of the book lays out the killing and the setup and is very well done.
This is one of my favorite series. I would rate this an A book.
Also, Mike writes an equally entertaining and good series as M. A. Lawson about a DEA agent Kay Hamilton.

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this arc.

Oh such devious minds...….. I just love this series of Joe DeMarco stories. The political machinations... the manipulations... the breaking and entering... the computer hacking... the networking among all the various players.. and those truly devious minds. Poor old Joe spent most of this book "unavailable" or golfing. But Emma (she of the truly devious mind) was very much front and center in this book. Another great good romp through Washington DC. I do hope Mike Lawson has future plans for Joe.

Another great book by Mike Lawson. Breezes along as usual despite DeMarco not being as involved as usual. I read this in less than 2 days. Not wanting to put it down. As always there were plenty of twists in the story and it was easy to get lost in the story. No spoilers just a very strong recommendation!