Political Intrigue with Mike Lawson

INGRID THOFT

A few years ago, I went to Portland, OR to receive the Spotted Owl Award for the Best First Mystery by a Pacific Northwest Writer, compliments of the Friends of Mystery.  It was lovely to get the award, of course, but equally exciting was the opportunity to meet writer Mike Lawson who was accepting the Best Mystery award that same year (for the second year in a row).

Mike lives in the Seattle area and is also a member of the Seattle7Writers organization.  Our paths have crossed in the ensuing years, and it's always a treat to catch up with him.  Mike writes two series, both of which are set in the halls of power amid the political intrigue in Washington, D.C.  His latest book, House Witness, came out in February, and I'm thrilled to have Mike give us the scoop.

INGRID THOFT:  Tell me about your main character, Joe DeMarco.  What inspired you to write a character who is a fixer for a corrupt politician?

MIKE LAWSON:  Actually, the DeMarco series started with the setting as opposed to the character.  I wanted to write a thriller series using Washington D.C. as a launch point for the novels because D.C. is a “target rich” environment for a writer.  There’s always something going on there that’s intriguing, criminal, and convoluted. (Now more so than ever.)  With that in mind, I wanted a protagonist that wasn’t a cop or a detective—there were already too many good cops and detectives in fiction that I couldn’t compete with—so I came up with DeMarco, a fixer for a powerful politician.  Making the politician a corrupt one wasn’t a stretch, obviously, since it seems as if one gets indicted about every other day.
 

IPT:  Where do you find inspiration for your plots?  Do you draw on your experience working as a nuclear engineer for the Navy?
  
ML:  Almost all my books have been inspired—not sure “inspired” is the right word—by some real-life event or circumstance.  The idea for House Rules came from an article I read in the "Washington Post" about the no-fly zone around D.C.  House Blood was sparked by a story in "Vanity Fair" about drug companies doing so-called clinical trials in third world countries.  House Justice was based, in part, on the reporter who outed the CIA agent, Valerie Plame, and was jailed for refusing to name her sources.  

My latest book, House Witness, came to me when I heard a guy on the radio talking about a man being arrested for murder and then tried four years later.  Four years!  It occurred to me: Gee, what can possibly go wrong when it takes four years to bring a case to trial?  My next thought was: What if someone made it her job to make things go wrong? 

Only one of my books was has had anything to do with the navy job I used to have, and that was The Second Perimeter.  The story was actually based on an incident at Los Alamos where the Chinese were accused of stealing a classified computer disk.  I’m a little leery, by the way, about writing about my experiences having to do with navy submarines and aircraft carriers; I don’t need NCIS agents showing up at my door asking why I’m writing about classified matters.  My navy/government background, however, has been very helpful when dealing with the D.C. institutions I often write about.

IPT:  I also love your series featuring former DEA agent Kay Hamilton.  Can you explain the inception of that series?

ML:  The Kay Hamilton series came about in a really odd way. There’s a television producer in LA who loves the Emma character in my DeMarco novels, and he called me one day and asked if I’d like to develop a script with a strong female protagonist for a TV movie.  I said sure, wrote the screenplay, which never got produced, but after the screenplay was finished it was really easy to write my novel, Rosarito Beach.

Rosarito Beach was intended to be a one-and-done stand alone, but when Penguin saw it, they said they wanted a series.  Which, of course, I agreed to; no writer turns down a two-book deal.  Rosarito Beach was also optioned for a television series—a long, sad story I won’t go into.

IPT:  What has surprised you most about being a published author?

ML:  I love writing, and there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.  And I’ve been extremely fortunate when it comes to my agent, my various editors, and to have been published by great houses like Doubleday, Penguin, and in particular, Grove Atlantic.  So although I really have nothing to whine about, I’ve been surprised by, and somewhat dismayed by, the amount of time, effort, and money that has to go into self-promotion.  My fantasy has always been to become a famous author-recluse like J.D. Salinger—but, of course, no one cares if you’re a recluse unless you’re really famous.

  
  
IPT:  Is there a wannabe book lurking in the back of your brain, something you would write if you didn’t have to consider agents, editors, and fans? A romance?

ML:  Yes, there is.  Right now I’m working on a book that’s unlike anything I’ve done before.  Not a thriller, not a mystery.  It’s sort of a comedy—I’m thinking Tom Hanks in the lead role—Are you listening, Tom?—and it deals with today’s divided, caustic political environment.  I’m not sure the book will ever see the light outside my laptop, but I’m plugging away at it in between my other books.  

Mike will be stopping by today to answer your questions.  He's also giving away a copy of House Witness.  Just comment to enter!

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?


Mike Lawson is the award-winning author of fifteen novels.  He has been nominated five times for the Barry Award and has twice won Friends of Mystery Award.  The twelve books in his Joe DeMarco political thriller series revolve around a character who is a fixer for a semi-corrupt politician.  The first of the three books in his Kay Hamilton series, "Rosarito Beach", was optioned for television.  Prior to turning to writing full time, Mike was a nuclear engineer employed by the Navy and he lives in the Northwest.

Politics anyone?

Breaking news: Karen Dubrinsky and Deb Romano are winners of Sally Goldenbaum's giveaway. Please contact her at sgoldenbaum at gmail dot com to claim your books!


LUCY BURDETTE: This winter in Key West I participated in the Key West Ambassador program. For sixteen weeks, a class of about 25 people interested in learning more about the city attended classes every Thursday afternoon. We visited the waste treatment plant, the fire station, the police station, the Navy base, and the town's offices, and heard presentations from every department you could imagine. We also had to attend at least one City Commission meeting, featuring the mayor and six commissioners. The final class was a roundtable with the commissioners, where we were encouraged to ask all the hard questions we could think of. I learned so much about how the city works.

Unfortunately over the past six months, the papers have been loaded with stories about conflicts between several of the elected officials. This peaked in a six-hour marathon that only ended because Key West statutes don't allow a meeting to go on after midnight! The meeting featured one of the commissioners telling the mayor to "man up," and the only female commissioner scolding the rest of the gang for lack of civility.

Great stuff for a mystery writer, right? But it also got me thinking about what kind of person runs for political office, from a town position on up to United States President. (Which seems like the worst job in the world to me.) And I decided I would be a dreadful politician. I don't like fighting with people. I despise long meetings. And my skin is too thin to take a lot of public criticism. (A crummy review is bad enough!)

How about you Reds? How would you be as a politician? Ever been tempted?

HALLIE EPHRON: I am forever grateful that there are people in this world who want to go into public service. Talk about thankless -- someone always disagrees with you. Loudly. And the pay is usually meager. Somebody's got to do it, and fortunately there are  takers.

RHYS BOWEN: The only time I was involved in any kind of politics was when the local council tried to close our high school. It was a stupid move, with all kinds of underhand political implications (like the chairperson was best friends with the real estate developer who would have been given the sale of the land) and it would mean our children would have faced a difficult commute on a crowded freeway to a school of 3,000 plus. So we assembled a committee and fought it. During that time we had to attend every local council meeting. It was suggested that one of us needed to run for local council. "You" they said to me. But fortunately we had some heavy hitters on our team, including an environmental lawyer and a D.A. We managed to change the city constitution so that no school could be closed without a referendum from the voters and WE WON.

But it made me see how awful those meetings are and how I would hate to be involved in any kind of politics. Most politicians I have met are not doing it for the public good (some are) but because they have big egos!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My first real jobs were as a staffer in various political campaigns..I loved it, and really thought that was the way to change the world. And I still think it is. (Sadly, no one I ever worked for actually won.) I also spent almost two years as a staffer on a subcommittee of the US Senate Judiciary committee--that was during Watergate and Nixon's resignation. It was fascinating, life-changing and educational.  It makes you realize how important it is to have kind, thoughtful, compassionate, open-minded, unselfish and incredibly smart people running the place.  When we get self-centered blowhards, that's when it all collapses.

LUCY: Hank and Rhys for office! Wouldn't they make a formidable slate? What about you, Red readers, would you make a good politcian?