Joe DeMarco Series

16 primary works • 16 total works
Joe DeMarco is a Congressional investigator in Washington DC.

Book 1 The Inside Ring by Mike Lawson 3.74 · 3,257 Ratings · 300 Reviews · published 2005 · 3 editions
"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 leaves behind 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 a guy - 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.


Book 2 The Second Perimeter by Mike Lawson 3.99 · 1,718 Ratings · 108 Reviews · published 1994 · 3 editions

The dazzling sequel to The Inside Ring finds Joe DeMarco, the Speaker of the House's all-purpose "fixer" in a battle of wits against a lethal female spy.

When the Secretary of the Navy's nephew says he believes that two colleagues at a U.S. naval base may be committing fraud, his uncle is skeptical. Reluctant to launch an official investigation based on a relative's vague suspicions, the secretary asks House Speaker, John Mahoney, to send his troubleshooter, DeMarco, to check out the story. As DeMarco and his friend Emma, a retired DIA agent, began to investigate what they thought was a low-stakes government swindle, they come to the terrifying realization that an espionage ring has infiltrated the naval base.

The leader of the espionage cell is a woman with whom Emma has a history that goes back to the cold war. Their encounter destroyed the woman's once promising career and turned her into a ruthless operative who cares about only one thing: destroying Emma, the person responsible for her shame, dishonor, and shattered life. DeMarco has never been near a spy in his life - at least not that he knew of - and now he's dealing with a foreign agent who is more deadly than anyone he's ever encountered.


Book 3 House Rules by Mike Lawson 3.89 · 1,756 Ratings · 120 Reviews · published 2008 · 21 editions

Mike Lawson’s Joe DeMarco thrillers have drawn praise for their fine-tuned suspense, off-kilter characters, intricate plots, and revealing portrait of Washington, DC behind closed doors.

In House Rules , a terrorist bombing of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel is narrowly avoided. Then a private plane headed straight for the White House ignores warnings and is shot down. An atmosphere of fear and panic overruns the country, and when the junior senator from Virginia proposes to deport all non-citizen Muslims and run extensive background checks on all Muslim Americans, his bill gains surprising traction.

Speaker of the House John Mahoney is not pleased. He knows it is the kind of knee-jerk response people will come to regret, like Japanese internment camps, and he needs to find a way to kill the bill before it exposes a secret he wants to keep. So Mahoney calls his man DeMarco. An average guy who struggles with debt, divorce, and an unreasonable boss, DeMarco is an unlikely hero, in over his head, relying on old friends as he attempts to get to the bottom of the attacks in this riveting read, full of suspense, fascinating characters, humor, and timely political intrigue.


Book 4 House Secrets by Mike Lawson 4.04 · 1,321 Ratings · 108 Reviews · published 2009 · 5 editions
Mike Lawson's previous novels starring Joe DeMarco, fixed for the Speaker of the House have earned him a loyal following from thriller aficionados and a place among the most talented and captivating thriller writers focusing on the dangerous games of our nation's capital. In House Secrets, DeMarco is sent to investigate the death of a reporter, the son of one of his boss€™s old colleagues, even though it appears to be nothing more than an unfortunate accident. He soon learns that the reporter was on the trail of Senator Paul Morelli, a rising star considered a shoe-in for his party€™s presidential nomination. Some politicians are lucky, and Morelli has been luckier than most, but his past has already been thoroughly scrutinized and he looks clean. But then, why is DeMarco being followed by a pair of rogue agents who freelance for the CIA?Dirty secrets, beltway politics, and divided loyalties threaten as DeMarco's investigation spirals dangerous


Book 5 House Justice by Mike Lawson 4.04 · 1,056 Ratings · 77 Reviews · published 2010 · 17 editions
In his thrillers starring Joe DeMarco, Mike Lawson has made a name for himself as one of the most entertaining and insightful writers focusing on the dirty games played in our nation’s capital. In House Justice, an American defense contractor goes to Iran to sell missile technology, and the CIA knows all about it thanks to a spy in Tehran. But the story is leaked to an ambitious journalist and the spy is burned, brutally tortured, and executed. The director of the CIA isn’t about to let the callous sacrifice of his valuable spy go unpunished. DeMarco’s boss, Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney has his own reasons to get to the bottom of the leak: he once had a fling with the journalist, and now that she’s in jail for refusing to reveal her source, she is threatening to tell all unless he helps get her out. DeMarco and the CIA aren’t the only ones looking for the source of the leak. Someone else wants to avenge the spy’s death, and is tailing DeMarco hoping he’ll lead him to his prey. House Justice is classic Mike Lawson—fascinating characters, inside-the-beltway intrigue, and a gripping plot packed with surprises.


Book 6 House Divided by Mike Lawson 3.99 · 1,169 Ratings · 114 Reviews · published 2011 · 19 editions

When the National Security Agency was caught wiretapping U.S. citizens without warrants, a political scandal erupted and the secret program came to a screeching halt. But the senior man at the NSA who spearheaded the most sophisticated eavesdropping operation in history wasn't about to sit by while spineless politicians sleepwalked his country into another 9/11. Instead, he moved the program into the shadows. But being in the shadows can cause complications.

When the NSA illegally records a rogue military group murdering two American civilians, they can't exactly walk over to the Pentagon and demand to know what's going on. That doesn't mean the NSA's hands are tied, however. As the largest intelligence service in the country, both in money and manpower, they have plenty of options - mostly illegitimate.

DeMarco learns all too well just what the NSA is capable of. They bug him, threaten him, and use him to draw out their opponent. But DeMarco doesn't like being used. A strong addition to this celebrated series, House Divided continues Mike Lawson's impressive run of inspired, compelling thrillers.


Book 7 House Blood by Mike Lawson 4.05 · 940 Ratings · 88 Reviews · published 2012 · 13 editions
DeMarco is asked to look into the murder conviction of a lobbyist. But he has other worries on his mind: his boss is no longer Speaker,his girlfriend has left him, andhis friend Emma may be dying. DeMarco doesn’t expect to free the lobbyist – much less to become the target of two of the most callous killers he and Emma have ever encountered.


Book 8 House Odds by Mike Lawson 4.05 · 912 Ratings · 87 Reviews · published 2013 · 14 editions

Washington, D.C., fixer Joe DeMarco has been asked to handle a lot of difficult situations over the years for his boss, congressman John Mahoney. But nothing has ever been quite so politically sensitive, or has hit so close to home, as the task Mahoney hands DeMarco in House Odds.

Mahoney's daughter has been arrested and charged with insider trading. An engineer with a high-flying technology firm, she allegedly placed a half-million dollar bet on one of the firm's clients. DeMarco's job is to clear her name and keep his boss clean. But how did she get her hands on so much money to invest in the first place? Before long, DeMarco uncovers far more about the case than meets the eye, and the risk to Mahoney is more than just a little political embarrassment.


Book 9 House Reckoning by Mike Lawson 4.14 · 847 Ratings · 89 Reviews · published 2014 · 16 editions

The ninth installment in Mike Lawson’s Washington, D.C. political thriller series launches readers back into Joe DeMarco’s past—to the murder of his father, which was never investigated, let alone solved.

DeMarco always knew that his father Gino had a shady job for a local mafioso, but he didn’t understand that Gino had been a hitman until he was murdered. Now, nearly twenty years later, one of Gino’s former mob associates is dying of lung cancer, and he wants to get something off his chest before retiring to his grave: the truth about Gino’s killer. The shocking information, and the powerful position the killer now occupies, sends DeMarco on a mission of revenge with terrible consequences. And after the secret being kept for so long, DeMarco has to rush to do something about it: the killer is on the brink of taking a job in Washington, D.C. that will leave him untouchable.

With his job, his morals, and his very life on the line, DeMarco must ask himself: How far will he go for revenge?


Book 10  House Rivals by Mike Lawson 4.10 · 739 Ratings · 69 Reviews · published 2015 · 11 editions
As a Washington, D.C. fixer, Joe DeMarco has found himself in plenty of unexpected situations, but none takes him further out of his element than the one early in House Rivals, the latest book in Mike Lawson’s award-winning series: a three-day road trip through Montana and the Dakotas with a twenty-two-year-old firebrand blogger.

His young companion is Sarah Johnson, whose grandfather saved the life of DeMarco’s boss, Congressman John Mahoney, in Vietnam. It has fallen to DeMarco to protect Sarah in her crusade against a billionaire oil tycoon who has profited handsomely from the booming "Kuwait on the Prairie"—and who has been bribing small-time politicians and judges to keep things in his favor. Though she has no hard evidence against the man, Sarah has been receiving death threats for her meddling. DeMarco, given his years of experience bending the rules in D.C., is suspicious that there is someone like him pulling strings for the tycoon. And when the situation takes a violent turn, DeMarco quickly realizes that he has more of a stake in this young woman’s mission than he thought. The situation turns into a battle of who can outwit whom as more than one life becomes endangered.


Book 11 House Revenge by Mike Lawson 4.11 · 829 Ratings · 82 Reviews · published 2016 · 10 editions
In House Revenge, Congressional fixer Joe DeMarco is dispatched to his boss Congressman John Mahoney s hometown of Boston. Mahoney wants him to help Elinore Dobbs, an elderly woman fighting against a real estate developer intent on tearing down her apartment building for a massive new development. Mahoney is just in it for the free press until Sean Callahan, the developer, disrespects him and even worse, Elinore suffers a horrible accident, likely at the hands of two thugs on Callahan s payroll. Now Mahoney and DeMarco are out for revenge. DeMarco tries to dig up dirt through Callahan s former mentor, and one of his ex-wives. But it s only when DeMarco gets a tip on the likely illegal source of some of Callahan s financing that things get deadly.
A fast-paced adventure into the cutthroat world behind the wrecking ball, "House Revenge" is another gripping tale of collusion and corruption from a beloved political thriller writer.



Book 12 House Witness by Mike Lawson 4.17 · 1,058 Ratings · 135 Reviews · published 2018 · 11 editions
In House Witness, the twelfth novel in the Joe DeMarco series, Mike Lawson puts his likable protagonist on the trail of a different kind of fixer--one whose job is to influence, and sometimes disappear, witnesses in seemingly airtight criminal cases. Minority Leader of the House and DeMarco's long-time employer John Mahoney has kept more than one secret from his wife over the years, but none so explosive as this: He has a son, and that son has just been shot dead in a bar in Manhattan. Mahoney immediately dispatches DeMarco to New York to assist prosecutor Justine Porter, but with five bystanders willing to testify against the killer--rich-boy Toby Rosenthal--the case seems like a slam-dunk. That is, until Porter begins to suspect that someone is interfering with those witnesses, and that this may be connected to a pattern of cases across the country. Is there someone who is getting witnesses out of the way when the fate of a wealthy defendant is on the line?

With the help of Porter's intern, as outrageously smart as she is young, DeMarco becomes determined to follow that question through to its violent resolution in what turns out to be this series' most unexpected plot yet.


Book 13 House Arrest by Mike Lawson 4.16 · 870 Ratings · 93 Reviews · published 2019 · 10 editions
In the thirteenth book in Mike Lawson’s celebrated series, Joe DeMarco finds himself on the wrong side of an investigation—in the wake of a political assassination, he’s been 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.

Featuring crimes of passion, corporate corruption, and partisan feuds, House Arrest is a gripping, timely political thriller, and one of Lawson’s best books yet.



I forgot book 14 and will post it separately.  


Book 15 House Standoff by Mike Lawson 4.26 · 692 Ratings · 71 Reviews · published 2021 · 8 editions
A D.C. fixer heads to Wyoming on a personal mission in the new novel from an Edgar Award-finalist

When someone close to him is shot dead in a roadside motel in a small Wyoming town, Joe DeMarco shirks his responsibilities as the Speaker of the House's fixer to make sure the authorities are doing everything they can to catch the killer. He soon realizes that the rural area is dominated by Hiram Bunt, a wealthy rancher with an obstructionist streak who's willing to take on the federal government at gunpoint and seems to have a number of politicians under his thumb.

But Bunt isn't the only one in the way. DeMarco also learns that his friend-a woman he was once in love with-had unearthed explosive secrets during her time in the backwoods, and that the deputy in charge of the investigation may be ignoring leads to preserve a secret of his own. Surrounded by people willing to kill to maintain the status quo, DeMarco launches his own investigation into a growing list of intertwining suspects. And being DeMarco, he concludes that breaking the law to uncover the truth is the best way to ensure that justice is done . .

Book 16 Alligator Alley by Mike Lawson 4.33 · 558 Ratings · 90 Reviews · published 2023 · 7 editions
Joe DeMarco likes to call himself a troubleshooter. It sounds better than "bagman" or "fixer." With more than a decade of troubleshooting under his belt on behalf of John Mahoney, the Speaker of the House, DeMarco has seen his fair share of dangerous situations.

When Andie Moore, a 23-year-old working in the DOJ's Inspector General's Office, is murdered in cold blood in Florida's Everglades, it falls on DeMarco to get to the bottom of things. Paired with Emma, an enigmatic, retired ex-spy with seemingly endless connections in the military and intelligence communities, they venture south to the scene of Andie's murder: Alligator Alley.

DeMarco and Emma waste no time in identifying a two suspects--a pair of crooked, near-retirement FBI agents named McIntyre and McGruder. But as they keep digging, it becomes clear that these FBI agents weren't acting alone, and that this goes much deeper than just the murder of an innocent 23-yearold

woman..