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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
May 2005, 272 pages
Paperback:
Aug 2006, 336 pages
A Washington conspiracy thriller in which 'the bad guys are sufficiently evil, the plot properly labyrinthine, the solution to the mystery completely satisfying. This is high-level entertainment from a writer who could soon rise to the top of the thriller heap'.
"The video begins with the President walking toward a marine
helicopter . . ."
From a bluff overlooking Georgia's untamed Chattooga River, an assassin
fires three shots. The President of the United States is wounded; his
best friend and a Secret Service agent are killed. Two days later, a man
in Landover, Maryland, commits suicide and in the man's home is
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 the assassination attempt on the
President, Banks had received a note with a dire warning: "Eagle One is
in danger. Cancel Chattooga River. The inside ring has been compromised.
This is not a joke." 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.
Even after the assassin is found dead, Banks is determined to dig a
little deeper. He turns to Speaker of the House John Fitzgerald Mahoney.
The Speaker has an under-the-radar, go-to guy he uses for things like this - things he can't afford to have connected to his office. The
guy is Joe DeMarco, an honest lawyer with a sordid family history.
After one meeting with Banks, DeMarco realizes he's in way over his
head. But Mahoney finds the prospect of taking down Donnelly
irresistible and sets DeMarco on a trail that twists through the Secret
Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security and snakes all
the way back to one of the more enduring mysteries of the twentieth
century.
Brimming with suspense, authenticity, and wit, The Inside Ring
marks the debut of a major new talent and introduces a cast of
intriguing characters with many more cases ahead.
Chapter 1
The receptionist--Boston-bred, fiftysomething, hard and bright as
stainless steel--arched a disapproving eyebrow at DeMarco as he entered
Mahoney's offices.
"You're late," she said. "And he's in a mood today."
"So since I'm late I guess that means I can go right in," DeMarco said.
The receptionist was married to a successful accountant, a very nice
man, very slim and neat and considerate. On those rare occasions they
made love she fantasized about burly Italian construction workers. She
used to fantasize about black men with washboard abs and shaved heads
but the last few months it had been men who looked like DeMarco: dark
hair, blue eyes, a Travolta dimple in his chin--and arms and shoulders
made for wife-beater undershirts. However, fantasy man or not, she
didn'...
Michael
Lawson was raised in
Pueblo, Colorado and attended
college at Seattle University,
receiving a degree in
engineering. On leaving college
he went to work for the US Navy
as a nuclear engineer, spending
approximately thirty years
working for the Navy's nuclear
power program. Some of this time
was spent in Washington D.C. but
most was spent at a large naval
shipyard in Bremerton,
Washington.
At the shipyard he managed a
number of different
organizations related to
overhauling ...
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