The Inside Ring by Michael Lawson

This is the first book in a series featuring Joe De Marco, a lawyer and trouble-shooter for the Speaker of the House.

Joe DeMarco works as a fix-it man for the Speaker of the House. He describes his job as taking care of "little stuff" causing problems for members of Congress, like kids on drugs and cheating spouses. He doesn't do anything illegal, he's strictly focused on trying to prevent scandal. After an assassination attempt on the President the Speaker sends Joe to help the Director of Homeland Security, Andy Banks.

A few days before the assassination attempt Banks received a note warning that him to cancel the Presidents trip because the inner ring of security had been compromised. Banks showed the note to the head of the Secret Service, but the two men decided that it was a hoax and ignored it. After the shooting Banks is filled with guilt, but doesn't want to admit what happened and destroy his career if the arrival of the note really was just a coincidence. He needs someone discrete to look into the situation and that's were Joe comes in. He's soon in way over his head, following clues from DC to the deep south.


I decided to try this series because Joe's rather unusual job sounded interesting and the reviews I saw were positive. Unfortunately the book didn't work for me nearly as well as it did for those reviewers. The main plot in a thriller is almost always highly improbable. That's the nature of the genre and I'm fine with that. However, for me that means that all the other details need to feel real in order to keep the story grounded and prevent it from collapsing under the weight of its own ridiculousness. In this story Joe felt real, but nothing else did. That ended up making it too difficult for me to suspend disbelief when the convoluted nature of the assassination plot was revealed.

In the end I was very glad that I had gotten the book from the library. If I had paid for it I would have been very disappointed.

Grade: C-

Will I try another book in this series?: I'm not sure. I did find Joe interesting and series often improve after the first book. If I can get the second book from the library I may give it shot.