Mike Lawson Books in Order
Explore Mike Lawson books in order, from Joe DeMarco to Kay Hamilton, with short summaries, reading guides, series background, and help on where to start.
Last updated: June 30, 2026
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Publication Order
25 books
The Inside Ring
by Mike Lawson
2005
After an attempt on the president's life, congressional fixer Joe DeMarco is sent to find out whether the Secret Service was compromised. What starts as a security breach turns into a tense Washington conspiracy with political fallout at every step.
The Second Perimeter
by Mike Lawson
2006
Joe DeMarco looks into a possible fraud case at a naval base and stumbles into a spy ring. With ex-intelligence operative Emma at his side, he is pulled into a Cold War grudge that is still killing people.
House Rules
by Mike Lawson
2008
After a foiled bombing and a plane shot down near the White House, fear sweeps Washington. Joe DeMarco digs into the attacks while trying to stop a panic-fueled anti-Muslim bill that could change the country.
House Secrets
by Mike Lawson
2009
Joe DeMarco is asked to look into a reporter's suspicious death, and the trail leads to a rising senator with a spotless public image. The closer Joe gets, the more dangerous the secrets around him become.
House Justice
by Mike Lawson
2010
A leak in Washington exposes a CIA asset in Iran and sets off a brutal hunt for the source. Joe DeMarco has to protect his boss, manage a jailed journalist, and stay ahead of a killer tracking his every move.
House Divided
by Mike Lawson
2011
With Mahoney sidelined, Joe DeMarco is left alone when an illegal surveillance program captures evidence of murder. Soon he is trapped between the NSA, the Pentagon, and operatives who see him as expendable.
House Blood
by Mike Lawson
2012
Joe DeMarco reopens the case of a lobbyist convicted of murder and finds a pharmaceutical scheme with deadly human costs. The deeper he digs, the closer he gets to killers who will do anything to protect a miracle drug.
House Odds
by Mike Lawson
2013
When John Mahoney's daughter is charged with insider trading, Joe DeMarco is sent to clear her name. The case leads him into dirty money, family secrets, and a scandal that could wreck Mahoney for good.
Rosarito Beach
by Mike Lawson
2013
DEA agent Kay Hamilton thinks taking down Tito Olivera could be the move that topples a vicious Mexican cartel. Then the case turns personal, and her hunt for justice becomes far more dangerous than she expected.
House Reckoning
by Mike Lawson
2014
A dying mobster finally tells Joe DeMarco who killed his father years ago. To learn the truth, Joe has to revisit his Queens upbringing and go after a powerful man who is almost beyond reach.
House Rivals
by Mike Lawson
2015
Sent to North Dakota to watch over a young blogger, Joe DeMarco finds an oil boom world full of intimidation and backroom deals. Protecting her means taking on fixers every bit as ruthless as he is.
Viking Bay
by Mike Lawson
2015
Fired by the DEA, Kay Hamilton takes a job with the shadowy Callahan Group and goes undercover in a high-risk Afghan mission. The deeper she gets, the less sure she is about the people using her.
House Revenge
by Mike Lawson
2016
Joe DeMarco heads to Boston to help an elderly woman battling a predatory developer, and an apparent accident makes the case personal. What follows is a sharp revenge story driven by dirty financing, politics, and muscle.
K Street
by Mike Lawson
2017
Ready to quit the Callahan Group, Kay Hamilton walks into a violent robbery at its Washington office. With her boss gravely injured and the agency's safe gone, she starts digging and finds a far bigger game at work.
House Witness
by Mike Lawson
2018
When Mahoney's secret son is murdered in Manhattan, Joe DeMarco expects an easy prosecution with five eyewitnesses. Instead he uncovers a slick operation dedicated to tampering with witnesses and making solid cases fall apart.
House Arrest
by Mike Lawson
2019
After a congressman is shot inside the Capitol, Joe DeMarco is arrested and framed for the crime. From a jail cell he relies on Emma to expose the corporate grudge and careful planning behind the setup.
House Privilege
by Mike Lawson
2020
A teenage heiress survives the plane crash that kills her parents, and Joe DeMarco is sent to look after her. He soon uncovers embezzlement, murder, and a chase that carries him far beyond Boston.
House Standoff
by Mike Lawson
2021
When a woman from Joe DeMarco's past is found murdered in rural Wyoming, he drops everything to find out why. The search pulls him into a local power struggle involving a wealthy rancher, old grudges, and buried secrets.
Redemption
by Mike Lawson
2022
Disgraced broker Jamison Maddox takes a job in the small town of Redemption, Illinois, thinking he has no other options. A new romance and a suspicious employer soon send him running from a hidden operation with lethal reach.
Alligator Alley
by Mike Lawson
2023
After a young Justice Department employee is murdered in the Florida Everglades, Joe DeMarco and Emma head south to investigate. Corrupt FBI agents are only the beginning of a case that keeps widening beneath them.
Kingpin
by Mike Lawson
2024
A dead intern, an unfinished report, and a staged overdose send Joe DeMarco after a web of political bribery. His search leads toward a powerful crime figure whose influence reaches well beyond Boston.
Ella
by Mike Lawson
2025
Early parole puts Ella Fields back on the street with no money, no future, and one clear target. This tight Joe DeMarco novella flips the spotlight onto a clever witness-tamperer who wants revenge.
Untouchable
by Mike Lawson
2025
When a billionaire socialite is executed in his own home, evidence begins pointing somewhere impossible. Joe DeMarco is sent into the shadows to investigate a president who may be beyond the reach of ordinary justice.
McKenna’s Guy
by Mike Lawson
2026
A quiet Washington civil servant survives a home invasion by killing the intruder, but the attack makes no sense. Detective Grace Lillinthal's questions and a call to fixer John McKenna pull a long-hidden criminal arrangement into the light.
The Asset
by Mike Lawson
2026
A hit-and-run that barely makes the news turns out to be the loose thread Joe DeMarco cannot ignore. As he looks into a possible Chinese asset and a rival's wife, every answer opens a darker question.
Where should I start?
If you want the main Washington series from the start: The Inside Ring → The Second Perimeter → House Rules
If you want Joe DeMarco at his most political: House Secrets → House Justice → House Divided
If you want a recent Joe DeMarco run: Alligator Alley → Kingpin → The Asset
If you want Mike Lawson outside the series: Redemption → McKenna’s Guy
If you want the Kay Hamilton books: Rosarito Beach → Viking Bay → K Street
Author bio
Mike Lawson grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, in a big family and later headed west to Seattle University, where he studied engineering. That training sent him into a very different world from publishing.
After college, he joined the U.S. Navy's nuclear power program and stayed for about thirty years. Much of that time was spent at the naval shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where he managed work tied to nuclear-powered submarines, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. He also spent time in Washington, D.C., which gave him a close look at the habits, hierarchies, and quiet absurdities of government life.
D.C. clearly stuck with him.
Lawson has said he always liked to write, but writing became serious as his Navy career began to wind down. He worked on fiction during his ferry commute between Seattle and Bremerton, using those stretches of time to build scenes and characters. It still took years of persistence before he found the right agent and sold his first novel.
That breakthrough was The Inside Ring, the book that introduced Joe DeMarco, a Washington fixer who does the ugly jobs for powerful politician John Mahoney. DeMarco was not built as a flawless action hero. He is funny, skeptical, occasionally weary, and often in over his head, which is a big part of why the series works.
Over the years Lawson kept widening that world with books like House Secrets, House Divided, House Witness, and Kingpin. Readers tend to come back for the mix of political intrigue, dry humor, and characters who feel like working stiffs even when they are moving through very high places. He also gives Washington a lived-in feel, not as a postcard city, but as a maze of offices, favors, grudges, and quiet deals.
He also wrote a second thriller series under the name M.A. Lawson. Those books, Rosarito Beach, Viking Bay, and K Street, follow Kay Hamilton, a hard-driving agent who moves from DEA work into murkier intelligence territory. The shift let Lawson explore a different kind of lead character while keeping his taste for pressure, secrecy, and bad institutions making bad choices.
He is not really a one-lane writer.
A standalone like Redemption shows that too, taking his suspense style outside DeMarco's Washington orbit and into a stranger, more self-contained setup. Across his books, you can see some steady interests: loyalty tested by power, people trapped inside bureaucracies, and smart professionals trying to do decent things in crooked systems. His work has also drawn major mystery-award attention, including an Edgar nomination.
Lawson lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, far from the back rooms of Capitol Hill but not, it seems, far from the stories those rooms can produce. That mix of insider knowledge, patient craft, and plainspoken storytelling is what gives his novels their steady pull.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
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