House Justice-Mike Lawson

House Justice
Mike Lawson
Atlantic Monthly, Jul 1 2010, $22.00
ISBN: 9780802119377

The undercover agent in Tehran informs the CIA that an American defense contractor is selling missile technology to the Iranian government. A congressional leak to the media leads to the CIA operative being exposed and captured in Tehran where he is tortured and executed.

The CIA chief is outraged with what happened to a field agent and vows to learn who leaked the information to the reporter as not only was a good person killed but peers know what happened. The journalist is placed in jail for her refusal to release her source. Speaker of the House John Fitzpatrick Mahoney is also fuming over what occurred in Tehran and Congress, but has a personal reason to expose the culprit. He assigns troubleshooter Joe DeMarco to find him the name of who broke the security laws by exposing the name of an operative. Joe teams up with CIA agent Angela DeCaprio as they investigate the leak; only each time they find someone associated with the name dropping that person is murdered.

This is an excellent timely entry in the great “House” political series (see House Rules and House Secrets) as Mike Lawson extrapolates from the exposing of Plume to make a case that those who did so deserved punishment for what could have happened to contacts. The story line is fast-paced, loaded with action, and dynamic conspiracies as Joe the ethical cynic and Angela the agent follow the trail while a killer follows their trail.

Harriet Klausner